Pope Benedict XVI criticised an "aggressive" anti-church sentiment he said is flourishing in Spain as he arrived on a two-day visit yesterday to rekindle faith in a key Roman Catholic nation.

Benedict said the anti-clericalism being felt today in Spain harks back to the 1930s when the church suffered a wave of violence and ill feeling as the country lurched from an unstable democracy to civil war.

Speaking en route to Santiago de Compostela, Benedict 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 secularisation has been born as we experienced in the 1930s," Benedict said. "For the future of the faith, it is this meeting – not a confrontation but a meeting – between faith and laicity which has a central point in Spanish culture."

The Pope is making two stops in Spain, first in the medieval and present-day pilgrimage city of Santiago, whose ornate cathedral is said to hold the remains of St James the Apostle.

The Pope recalled that Pope John Paul II had issued a similar message to rediscover their Christian roots when he visited Santiago in 1982.