Pope to parade up the Royal Mile in flying visit to Capital

THE POPE is to set to parade up the Royal Mile during his flying visit to Edinburgh later this year.

Thousands are expected to line the street as Benedict XVI drives past in the "Popemobile" after a meeting with the Queen at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

It emerged yesterday that the Pope would only spend a few hours in the Capital when he arrives at the start of his official visit to Britain. But today the Catholic church reassured people they would get a chance to see him while he is here.

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The 83-year-old pontiff will fly into Edinburgh Airport on the morning of 16 September to begin the four-day visit. A senior member of the Royal family, possibly Prince Charles, will be among the VIPs at the airport to greet him.

He will be driven to the Palace in a motorcade to meet the Queen, First Minister Alex Salmond and other dignitaries.

After that, he will drive from Holyroodhouse up the Royal Mile in his bullet-proof "Popemobile" in what will be the main opportunity for the public to see him.

He will then go to the home of Cardinal Keith O'Brien in Morningside before travelling to Glasgow for a tea-time Mass in Bellahouston Park for 150,000 people.

Later in the evening, he is due to fly from Glasgow to London to continue the official state visit.

Cardinal O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and president of the Catholics Bishops' Conference of Scotland, said: "I am thrilled the Pope has accepted this invitation and I am sure he will receive a heartfelt welcome from Catholics as well as members of other faiths and people of goodwill."

The last visit by a Pope to Scotland was in 1982 when Pope John Paul II celebrated mass in both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said: "We are thrilled at the prospect of this visit beginning in Scotland. By happy coincidence, the Queen is in Scotland anyway so that state visit takes place in Edinburgh.

"Time constraints mean that his public Mass will be in Glasgow, but that will very much be a national event."

During the four-day trip, the Pope will also make a major speech to British civil society at Westminster Hall, visit the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace and pray with other church leaders at Westminster Abbey.

He will also visit the West Midlands to beatify the 19th century theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman at a public Mass in Coventry.