Pope visits soup kitchen in first trip since attack

Pope Benedict XVI has had lunch with 150 needy and homeless people at a soup kitchen in Rome.

It was his first journey outside the Vatican since he was attacked during Christmas Eve Mass inside St Peter's Basilica.

A Vatican judge will decide within the next few weeks whether the 25-year-old Swiss woman who assaulted the Pope will face criminal charges.

She is under observation in a psychiatric facility near Rome.

There was exceptionally heavy security by Italian police as the Pope made the short drive from the Vatican to a soup kitchen in Trastevere run by a Roman Catholic lay community.

No marginalisation

The Pope stopped to greet people who had gathered outside the soup kitchen under the keen surveillance of Vatican and Italian security agents.

Then he had lunch at a table seated next to a man from Afghanistan and a young family from Romania.

In a short speech the Pope urged that no-one should be marginalised, abandoned or left alone in Italy today.

Before leaving he distributed sweets and gifts to all the children present.