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	Pope Meets U.S. Clergy Abuse Victims CBC News (Canada) April 17, 2008 http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/17/popethursday.html Pope Benedict XVI met privately with victims of clergy sexual abuse Thursday after leading a large open-air mass at a Washington baseball stadium. The Pope and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley met with a small group of victims to offer encouragement and hope, said papal spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi. Lombardi said the Pope called the crisis a source of "deep shame" and told the abuse victims he would pray for them, their families and all victims of such abuse. The Pope and O'Malley spoke privately with each of the five or six abuse victims from O'Malley's archdiocese, all adults who had been molested when they were minors, Lombardi said. Then the whole group prayed together. One of the victims, Bernie McDaid, later told the Associated Press that he shook the Pope's hand then told him about how he was an altar boy and was abused by a priest. He told the Pope that the abuse was not only sexual but spiritual. "I said, 'Holy Father, you need to know you have a cancer in your flock and I hope you will do something for this problem; you have to fix this,"' McDaid said. "He looked down at the floor and back at me, like, 'I know what you mean.' He took it in emotionally. We looked eye to eye." Abuse survivor Gary Bergeron, who was not present, called the meeting "a long-sought step in the right direction." "The Catholic Church is partly based on symbolism, and I think the symbolism had he not met with survivors would have been horrendous," the 45-year-old Bergeron said. Calls U.S. land of hope during mass Earlier Thursday, Pope Benedict described the United States as a land of both hope and difficulties during an elaborate mass at Nationals Park. He arrived at the field a half-hour before the mass began and was driven around the playing field in his white Popemobile. Sitting in a throne beneath a giant golden crucifix, the Pope delivered his homily clad in scarlet robes. Four separate choirs with a total of 570 members sang hymns. More than 45,000 people gathered for the mass. "Americans have always been a people of hope," he said in his homily. "Your ancestors came to this country with the experience of finding new freedom and opportunity. "To be sure, this promise was not experienced by all the inhabitants of this land; one thinks of the injustices endured by the native American peoples and by those brought here forcibly from Africa as slaves." The pontiff also spoke of divisions within the Roman Catholic Church, and said more attention needed to be paid to the difficulties faced by minority groups in the United States such as native Americans and blacks. At the end of the two-hour mass, Benedict blessed the cheering crowd and was escorted away by worried-looking papal bodyguards. Clergy sex abuse mentioned He raised the issue of sexual abuse by U.S. Catholic clergy during the mass. "No words of mine could express the pain or harm caused [to victims of abuse]." CBC's Henry Champ, at Nationals Park, said the crowd jumped to its feet and roared approval when the Pope spoke in Spanish. "I'd estimate this crowd is at least 50 per cent Spanish speaking," Champ said. The Pope has already expressed support for some of the community's concerns about anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, Champ said. "This mass is a very Latin America-style celebration." Organizers of the papal visit say the joyous ritual of a mass celebrated by the Pope is a lifetime event for many Catholics, and should turn some media attention away from the sexual abuse scandal. On Wednesday evening, the Pope acknowledged in a speech to U.S. Catholic bishops at Washington's National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception that the scandal had been sometimes "very badly handled." In 2004, U.S. bishops released a statistical review that found 4,392 priests had been accused of molesting children in 10,667 cases between 1950 and 2002. The accusations have devastated the Catholic Church and forced the payout of nearly $2 billion in settlements. Advocates for the rights of victims of the clergy's sexual abuse welcomed the Pope's comments, but called on him to meet with survivors. Barbara Blaine, the head of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the Pope should "punish those pedophile priests and the cardinals who help them cover up." Stellar White House welcome Earlier on Wednesday, the pontiff received a welcome steeped in ritual and pageantry at the White House to mark the beginning of his tour of the U.S., in one of the most elaborate arrival ceremonies ever held in the country's capital. Thousands of invited guests covered the south lawn of the White House, including members of the U.S. cabinet, top Catholic clergy, diplomats and school children. Other engagements on Thursday include a meeting with religious leaders from the American Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Protestant communities in Washington, and a conference with heads of Catholic schools and universities from across the U.S. The Pope travels to New York on Friday where he'll have a tickertape parade along Fifth Avenue, address the United Nations and visit Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Center towers that were felled by al-Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. On Sunday, he'll celebrate mass at Yankee Stadium.
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