Pope Meets Abuse Victims The Private Talk with Five Survivors Followed a Huge D.C. Mass, by David OReilly, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 18, 2008

Pope Meets Abuse Victims
The Private Talk with Five Survivors Followed a Huge D.C. Mass.

By David O'Reilly
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 18, 2008

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20080418_Pope_meets_abuse_victims.html

WASHINGTON - In an extraordinary move, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday met in private with victims of clergy sex abuse, praying with them and offering words of hope.

The pontiff's day began with an open-air Mass attended by more than 45,000 people in a baseball stadium, and later included an address to Catholic college presidents.

But it was the unexpected private meeting with sex-abuse victims that is likely to be the most significant event of Benedict's six-day visit to the United States.

Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowd at Nationals Park in Washington. Thousands were on hand yesterday as he celebrated Mass at the stadium.
Photo by Laurence Kesterson

The five victims, all adults from the Archdiocese of Boston, met with Benedict for 25 minutes at the Washington residence of Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio to the United States. They met as a group and privately, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who said that some of the victims wept.

"They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterward listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope," said Lombardi, adding that the pontiff himself had requested the meeting. "His holiness assured them of his prayers for their intentions, for their families, and for all victims of sexual abuse."

Bernie McDaid, one of the victims, said in an interview with CNN that he told the pope that he was an altar boy when he was abused and that "it wasn't just sexual abuse. It was spiritual abuse. And I want you to know that. And then I told him that he has a cancer growing in his ministry and needs to do something about it. And I hope he hears me . . . and he nodded."

McDaid and two other victims interviewed said the meeting was candid and emotional.

Victim Olan Horne said that the meeting was unscripted and that the pope showed sincere regret and offered him hope.

Faith Johnson said that she "got up to him and I burst into tears. I think my tears alone spoke so much."

The sex-abuse scandal left deep and lasting wounds in the Roman Catholic Church. Boston was the scene of some of the nation's most extensive child sex abuse and coverup by Catholic clergy between 1950 and the early 1990s. Lawsuits and news investigations there starting in 2002 revealed hundreds of priests had molested thousands of young children.

The revelations of abuse shocked the nation and launched investigations and similar revelations in many of the 194 other Catholic dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. These in turn forced the nation's bishops to pledge to a massive reform of how they handled abuse cases and abusive priests.

Nationally, hundreds of priests have since been forced to resign, and settlements with victims are projected to exceed $2 billion. An investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded that between 1950 and 2002, about 4.5 percent of the nation's Catholic clergy were known to have molested a minor.

In Philadelphia, a grand jury report in 2006 said that close to 100 priests had been "credibly accused" of abuse.

Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was not known to have met with any abuse victims. Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley had sought repeatedly to have Benedict visit Boston on this papal visit to help promote healing, the Boston Globe reported, but the Vatican chose to keep the visit short in light of Benedict's age. He turned 81 on Wednesday.

Earlier yesterday, Benedict celebrated his first public Mass in the United States. From a specially built altar in the centerfield of Nationals Park baseball stadium, the pontiff declared that "the present moment is a crossroads, not only for the church in America but also for society as a whole."

In his homily, Benedict spoke of a need to cultivate a "genuinely Catholic" mind-set among young Catholics - a theme he reiterated later in an address to the heads of the nation's Catholic educational institutions.

"A university's or school's identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students," he told an afternoon assembly of university presidents and diocesan school superintendents at the Catholic University of America. "It is a question of conviction."

Teachers and administrators of Catholic schools and universities must "ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice," he said.

Today the pope flies to New York, where he will address the United Nations. On Sunday, he will say Mass at Yankee Stadium, where 3,000 members of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will be part of the crowd.

Despite the sober tone of its homily - and the victims' meeting that awaited him - yesterday's Mass had a palpably festive quality. Benedict arrived shortly before 10 a.m. and circled the field's perimeter in his white popemobile as the crowd cheered, whistled, and some shouted "Viva il papa!" or "Long live the pope."

He appeared to relish the warm reception, grinning broadly and reaching out of the vehicle's windows.

The concession stands, meanwhile, were doing a brisk business in souvenirs featuring likenesses of the man in white. Refrigerator magnets went for $5, posters for $10, tote bags for $15, and T-shirts for children and adults ran $20. "I thought $20 was a little high for child sizes," said Dawn Spranger of Hollywood, Md. "But it's a memory."

Although the tone of his homily was compassionate rather than stern, it touched on sober themes. He spoke of "signs of alienation" in American culture: "anger and polarization, increased violence, a weakening of the moral sense, a coarsening of social relations, and a growing forgetfulness of God."

And he spoke of the damage wrought by incidents of clergy sexual abuse of children. "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse." It is a topic he had visited on the two previous days of his trip.

He urged "loving pastoral attention" to those who have been abused, but also urged his listeners to "love your priests, and . . . affirm them in the excellent work they do."

After the Eucharist, operatic tenor Placido Domingo approached the altar and sang the hymn "Panis Angelicus."

Benedict, a devotee of traditional church music, appeared enthralled, leaning forward in his chair and rising afterward to greet Domingo and clasp his hands. Domingo knelt and kissed the pontiff's hand.

Benedict's address to the approximately 400 Catholic educators in the afternoon evinced his conviction that faithful Catholic education could heal some of the wounds he identified in his homily. "No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith," he told them, "which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation."

The Catholic identity of a Catholic school or university "is not dependent on statistics," he warned. "Neither can it be equated with orthodoxy of course content."

Teachers and administrators of Catholic institutions have a duty, he said, "to ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice."

"Diversion from this vision weakens Catholic identity," he said, and invariably leads to confusion.

He won a round of applause when he urged religious orders to "renew your commitment to schools, especially those in poorer areas."

He departed the university shortly after his address and traveled to the nearby Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, where he met with leaders of many non-Christian faiths, including Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus.