SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain - Pope Benedict XVI criticized an "aggressive" anti-church sentiment that he said is flourishing in Spain as he began a two-day visit Saturday to rekindle faith in a key Roman Catholic nation.

The pope's first stop was in the medieval and present-day pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, whose ornate cathedral is said to hold the remains of St. James the Apostle.

Benedict told reporters that the anti-clericalism being seen now in Spain harks back to the 1930's, when the church suffered a wave of violence and ill feeling as the country lurched from an unstable democracy to civil war.

The pope said he had created a new Vatican office to fight such secular trends worldwide. He said Spain was a particular focus since it had played such an important role in reviving Christianity in centuries past.

"In Spain, a strong, aggressive laicity, an anti-clericalism, a secularization has been born as we experienced in the 1930's," Benedict said. "For the future of the faith, it is this meeting -- not a confrontation but a meeting -- between faith and laicity that has a central point in Spanish culture."

Upon arriving in a fog-shrouded Santiago, the pope recalled that Pope John Paul II had issued a similar message to Spain and Europe to rediscover their Christian roots when he visited Santiago in 1982.

"A Spain and Europe concerned not only with people's material needs but also with their moral and social, spiritual and religious needs, since all these are genuine requirements of our common humanity," he said in a speech in Spanish.

As many as 200,000 people packed the square and cobblestone streets of the city's beautiful medieval quarter and lined the route from the airport to catch a glimpse of the Pope's motorcade, featuring his armoured white "popemobile."

Every year millions of faithful take part in the "Camino de Santiago" pilgrimage to this western Galician city -- even more so in a jubilee year, which occurs every time the feast of St. James -- July 25 -- falls on a Sunday as it does this year.

The scallop shell symbol of St. James, ubiquitous around the city and on pilgrim routes that thread toward Santiago, is particularly important to Benedict: It forms a central part of his papal coat of arms.

Benedict blessed the crowd at the cathedral entrance in Santiago by spraying holy water and then entered as a pilgrim: to pray before the apostle's tomb, embrace his statue and watch as the cathedral's enormous incense burner swings pendulum-like across the length of the transept.

Not everyone was exited about the pope's visit. Riot police swinging truncheons clashed Thursday night with anti-papal protesters in Santiago, some of whom carried red banners reading "I am not waiting for you."

The Pontiff also plans to visit Barcelona, where he will dedicate the famous albeit unfinished Sagrada Familia church. There, he'll also face a "kiss-in" staged by gays and lesbians, evidence of the secular lifestyle that Benedict has identified as a threat to the faith.

With such palpable opposition to the pope, it's no surprise that Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will only see Benedict as he's leaving on Sunday night. Laws under Zapatero's watch have allowed gay marriage, fast-track divorce and easier abortions, deeply angering the Vatican.

In Zapatero's place, Spain's royal family is taking care of the protocol during the pope's visit. Crown Prince Felipe greeted Benedict at Santiago's airport Saturday and welcomed him to the country.