Madeleine's Parents Due to Meet Pope

The parents of abducted 4-year-old Madeleine McCann are due to meet the Pope in the Vatican.

The parents of abducted 4-year-old Madeleine McCann are due to meet the Pope in the Vatican on Wednesday at the end of his weekly general audience.

Kate and Gerry McCann, both Catholics, flew to Rome from Portugal on Tuesday where they hope to speak to Pope Benedict in St Peter's Square in Rome.

Traditionally, such meetings take place in front of St Peter's Basilica when the Pope greets people in the front rows of a special section near the papal platform and are not considered private audiences.

The parents have said they hoped to draw profound strength from any audience as well as helping to publicise the campaign to bring Madeleine home.

"Under normal circumstances we would be extremely excited about meeting the Pope, but as we are here as a result of Madeleine's abduction the circumstances are very different," Gerry McCann wrote on his Web log.

"We expect to receive a great spiritual lift, especially if we get to speak to the Pontiff personally."

The McCanns said the trip would also be difficult as they had been forced to leave behind their two other children with relatives in Portugal.

On Tuesday they released the last video footage of their daughter taken before her disappearance on May 3 from a holiday resort on the Algarve.

She was snatched in the evening from an apartment as her parents ate at a restaurant about 100 yards (metres) away.

The video clips, taken on a mobile phone, show Madeleine climbing the stairs onto a flight at East Midlands Airport and then sitting on an airport bus in the Algarve.

On Monday, a giant inflatable billboard publicising Madeleine's disappearance was erected on a beach at Praia da Luz close to where she was snatched.