In mosque,Pope keeps his shoes on

Benedict XVI was ready to take them off,but his escorts led him down a special walkway and did not ask him to do so, the spokesman said.

During a visit to Istanbuls Blue Mosque in December 2006,the Pope did remove his shoes. That visit came hot on the heels of the furore in the Muslim world over remarks in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as evil and inhuman.

The Pope on saturday urged inter-faith reconciliation on the second day of a Holy Land tour,but disappointed Muslim clerics by failing to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam. The pontiff,in a keynote address to Muslim leaders,bemoaned ideological manipulation of religion and urged Muslims and Christians to unite as worshippers of God.

He said that his visit to the region was a reminder of the inseparable bond between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.