from time: After three days of rising protests from students and professors, Pope Benedict XVI has pulled out of a long scheduled visit Thursday to Rome’s historic La Sapienza University… The Pope’s opponents burst out in celebration at the east Rome campus when reached with the news of the cancellation… the 80-year-old Pope may yet have the last word… For the whiff of censorship… may offer ammunition for Benedict’s belief that he is something of a “Pope under siege” in the face of the prevailing secular winds of his times.

update: pope publishes cancelled speech
from bbc: The Vatican has released the text of a speech the Pope was due to have given during a visit to Rome University, that was cancelled due to protests.