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About 70,000 people attended Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on the first day of the state visit
Catholic education, relations with the Church of England and the role of faith in the UK are set to be major themes of the second day of the Pope’s UK visit.
He flew into London for the next leg of his state visit late on Thursday.
Later Pope Benedict XVI will meet hundreds of students, make a speech at Westminster Hall and hold joint prayers with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
On Thursday the Pope celebrated open-air Mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, attended by about 70,000 people.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the second day of the Pope’s four-day visit will be heavy with symbolism.
Pope Benedict will lead a gathering of nearly 4,000 young people at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, at an event called The Big Assembly.
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The Church sees it as an opportunity to celebrate the work of more than 2,000 Catholic schools across the UK, in partnership with the state.
However, our correspondent says that for some people it will fuel hostility to faith schools and it could also be a painful reminder of the abuse scandals hanging over the trip.
The Pope will meet representatives of other faiths, before visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.
The meeting is a gesture of reconciliation on both sides, as Catholic archbishops lived at the palace until England, under Henry VIII, broke with Rome.
The Pope will then make the most political speech of his visit at Westminster Hall, our correspondent adds.
He is likely to stress the value of Catholic social teaching and link it with ideas of community-building contained in David Cameron’s concept of the “Big Society”.
The Pope arrived in London at Heathrow airport where he was met by London Mayor Boris Johnson.
The mayor presented him with three books including Mr Johnson’s own historical work, To Dream of Rome.
The Pope is staying the night at the Apostolic Nunciature, in Wimbledon, the residence of his representative in Britain.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church in England and Wales hailed the first day of the Pope’s visit as a success.
“Everybody in the Pope’s entourage was overwhelmed by the people on the streets of Edinburgh and the turn out in Glasgow. It wasn’t just the size of the crowd but their enthusiasm,” he said.
In his homily in Glasgow, Pope Benedict warned against people who seek “to exclude religious belief from public discourse”, saying they even went as far as painting religion “as a threat to equality and liberty”.
He insisted: “Religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect.”
The Pope had travelled to Glasgow from Edinburgh, where he was welcomed to the UK by the Queen at Holyroodhouse.
There were performances by two Scottish singers, Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle and 2003 Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus.
The Popemobile joined the annual St Ninian’s Day parade where police estimated about 125,000 people had turned out to see him.
The trip is the first to the UK by a pontiff since John Paul II in 1982.
It is also the first to be designated as a state visit because the Pope was invited by the Queen rather than the Church.
Dioceses in England and Wales have reported thousands of unfilled places for a vigil in London’s Hyde Park on Saturday and a beatification Mass in Birmingham on Sunday for 19th Century cardinal John Henry Newman.
The Pope’s visit has caused controversy in the UK because of the cost and the scandal surrounding child abuse within the Catholic Church.
Tens of thousands of people cheered and waved flags as Pope Benedict travelled to Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.
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