It was the 82-year-old pontiff’s first appearance outside the Vatican since the attack, which left him unhurt but raised security concerns.

Security was tight, but Benedict greeted well-wishers as usual. He kissed some children and caressed the hands of others as he entered a soup kitchen operated by the Sant’Egidio Community, a lay Catholic group, a few miles from the Vatican.

Many in the crowd applauded, some shouting “Viva il Papa!” or “Long live the Pope!” The pope has kept up his busy holiday schedule despite the incident, in which a woman jumped a barricade in St. Peter’s Basilica and pulled the pope to the ground as she was taken down by guards.

– Associated Press

CHINA

Condemned man’s family pleads for him

Two cousins of a British man due to be executed in China this week for drug trafficking arrived in the country on Sunday to plead for his life, an activist group said.

Akmal Shaikh, a father of three, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday morning.

His family wants Chinese authorities to take into account that Shaikh might be mentally ill, the London-based group Reprieve said.

Beijing rejected an appeal from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to spare Shaikh, 53, who was convicted in 2008 of carrying a suitcase containing almost 9 pounds of heroin to Urumqi, a city in China’s far western Xinjiang region.