Here is one of the last reports "en route"
By Gina Doggett
SAO PAULO (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI was on his way Wednesday to Brazil for his first official trip to the Americas, where the Roman Catholic Church faces increasing competition from evangelical faiths.
Speaking aboard the chartered Alitalia flight from Rome, Benedict acknowledged "concern" over the surge in pentecostal sects in the region.
"We should be more missionary, or more dynamic, to offer responses to the thirst for God," said Benedict, 80, who will visit Sao Paolo until Friday, when he will travel to nearby Aparacida to open a conference of Latin American bishops, the central purpose of his journey.
The bishops' conference "wants to find a convincing response to this problem and is working on it already," said Benedict, who is scheduled to arrive in Sao Paolo at 1930 GMT on Wednesday.
South America is home to nearly half of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. But in Brazil, while 64 percent of the population is Catholic, the figure has fallen from 74 percent a decade ago, according to a recent study.
Meanwhile the number of Pentecostal evangelicals has risen to 17 percent from 11 percent, said the Datafolha study based on 44,642 interviews.
Tight security under "Operation Archangel" has marshalled some 10,000 military, police and civilians under army command to protect the pontiff during his movements, which are to include helicopter hops and brief outings in the Popemobile.
In teeming Sao Paulo, Benedict is to celebrate an open-air mass on Friday at the vast Campo de Marte where a giant wooden cross has been erected for the occasion. On Thursday the pope will have an "encounter with youth" in the city's Pacaembu stadium.
Public transport has been stepped up, and helicopter travel -- a popular way for the well-heeled to escape Sao Paulo's notorious traffic -- will be restricted.
In Friday's mass, where up to a million faithful are expected, Benedict will canonize Brother Galvao, Brazil's first native-born saint.
The friar, who lived from 1739 to 1822, founded monasteries and convents throughout Brazil but is best known today because of his reputed healing powers.
Aparecida is a heavily visited sanctuary city dedicated to the cult of Our Lady of the Apparition, the patron saint of Brazil, enshrined in a massive basilica.
The pope will kick off the two-week conference of 166 bishops and cardinals from the 22 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, the group's first meeting in 15 years, on Sunday.
Benedict is expected to highlight the importance of the family in Latin American life, just two weeks after the Roman Catholic Church lost a key social battle when Mexico City, an important Catholic bastion, decriminalized abortion.
During the airborne news conference, Benedict backed a threat by Mexican bishops to ex-communicate lawmakers who voted for the bill.
"It is written in the (canon) law that murdering a child is incompatible with communion, and the bishops have done nothing arbitrary. They have only put the spotlight on what is allowed by Church law."
Mexico City is one of the few places in Latin America where abortion is allowed without restrictions in the first three months of pregnancy. Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico, a US territory, have similar legislation.
Analysts say the pope will also use his trip to Brazil to promote Christ's divinity over the politicized Jesus embraced by Latin America's liberation theologists.
Benedict is said to be convinced that the struggle for influence with evangelical sects revolves around the image of Christianity's central figure, the subject of his just-published book "Jesus of Nazareth."
However the head of the Roman Catholic Church argues that the pentecostal trend has little to do with liberation theology, the movement with Marxist overtones that swept the Latin American region, especially Brazil, in the 1970s.
As cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, when he headed the Vatican's doctrinal enforcement body for 24 years, the pope spearheaded opposition to liberation theology, notably condemning Brazilian proponent Leonardo Boff in 1985.
[Modificato da @Andrea M.@ 09/05/2007 22.02]