The second consecutive pope to visit a synagogue.

I told you we were working things out. It may take a couple of hundred years or so, but that's cool.

Pope Benedict has said Christians and Jews must join forces on a visit to a synagogue in his native Germany.

The Pope is making his first foriegn trip since he was elected in April and he urged both religions to collaborate to ensure the "insane racist ideology" that led to the Holocaust is not allowed to resurface.

At the synagogue in Cologne, he heard a Jewish leader call on him to open all the Vatican's archives dealing with World War Two and the Holocaust.

The Pope served briefly in the Hitler Youth during the war, when membership of the Nazi paramilitary organisation was compulsory and he paused to pray at a memorial to the six million killed as he began the landmark visit.

Couldn't have a Benedict XVI story without a gratuitous Hitler Youth reference, now could we?

The Pope said: "In the 20th century, in the darkest period of German and European history, an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry."

Catholic-Jewish relations have improved tremendously in the past half-century, particularly during the 27-year pontificate of John Paul, Benedict warned that new threats of racism and anti-Semitism were always lurking.

He said: "It is a particularly important task, since today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility towards foreigners.

"How can we fail to see in this a reason for concern and vigilance? The Catholic Church is committed to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and religions."