Pope honours deported Jews

Pope angered Jews by moving his wartime predecessor Pius XII, accused of inaction during the Holocaust, further on the road to sainthood.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday paid homage to more than 1,000 Roman Jews deported to Nazi death camps as he started a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue.

The 82-year-old pope began the much-anticipated visit under a cloud after angering many Jews by moving his wartime predecessor Pius XII, accused of inaction during the Holocaust, further on the road to sainthood.

As onlookers applauded, the German-born pope also stopped before an inscription marking a 1982 attack by Palestinian extremists that killed a two-year-old child and wounded 27 other people.

The tension surrounding Benedict's third visit to a Jewish house of worship is in stark contrast to the warm welcome reserved for his predecessor John Paul II, who became the first modern pope to visit a synagogue -- the same imposing temple on the banks of the Tiber -- in 1986.