AFP: Avoiding scientists’ protests, pope cancels university speech
ROME (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday cancelled a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit by the head of the Catholic Church to a secular setting.
“Following the well-noted controversy of recent days … it was considered appropriate to postpone the event,” which had been set for Thursday, a Vatican communique said, in the first such cancellation in the face of hostility since the pope’s election in April 2005.
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