"We have to remember that this identity of ours calls for strength, clarity, and courage in the world in which we live," he told pilgrims and tourists at his weekly general audience.

Discussion can continue but not at the expense of a vigorous faith that some feel has been diluted in the last forty years.

"But this path of dialogue that is so necessary must not lead us to forget the duty to firmly underscore the tenets and identity of our Christian faith that cannot be renounced."

Benedict firmly believes the Catholic church to be the mother church from which other Protestant faiths have strayed. Their faith and walk is "deficient" according to papers written during the time when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the doctrinal watchdog of the church.