AFP
April 19, 2008
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hFPxFxwPa7N5x6U8EnTOZUDJbzgw
NEW YORK (AFP) — In a historic mass at St Patrick's cathedral Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI pledged his support to Roman Catholic clerics as they seek to heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has rocked the US church.
The sex scandal "has caused so much suffering" and damaged "the community of the faithful," the pope, looking tired on the fifth day of his visit, said in his homily to hundreds of clerics and men and women of religious orders gathered in the St Patrick's cathedral for the first-ever mass celebrated there by a pope.
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| Pope Benedict XVI |
Benedict, who was marking the third anniversary of his election to the papacy, assured them of his "spiritual closeness" as they strive to respond to the "continuing challenges" presented by the sex abuse scandal, which the ageing pontiff has made an overarching theme of his six-day US visit.
The US church has been shaken financially and morally by the scandal, which erupted in 2002 when the then archbishop of Boston confessed to having shielded a priest he knew had sexually abused youngsters.
Numbers put forward by the US church show there have been 14,000 victims of some 4,000 to 5,000 clerics since the 1960s.
Victim support groups and activists, including former church insiders, believe the numbers are 10 times the official figure.
Much of victims' anger has been directed at bishops who covered up the cases and often simply transferred offending priests from one diocese to another.
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| Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass at St. Patrick's Catherdral in New York |
Under the domed arches of the cathedral, which Benedict said are "dwarfed by the Manhattan skyscrapers," he spoke out in support of US bishops, urging clergy members and religious communities "to cooperate with your bishops who continue to work effectively to resolve this issue."
"We count ourselves to be truly blessed to hear from you what we must strive to be and do if we are to fulfil the vocation of hope to which we committed ourselves," said New York Archbishop Edward Egan in an address to welcome the pope.
Thursday, the pope held an unprecedented meeting with US victims abused by priests, offering them his support after he acknowledged the pain and damage caused by the Church's sex scandal as they prayed together in Washington, the first stop on the two-city papal visit.
"I said to him, Holy Father, you have a cancer growing in your flock and you need to do something about that, and I hope you understand me and hear me," Bernie McDaid, who was abused at the age of 12, said on CNN after the brief meeting in the chapel of the apostolic nunciature in Washington.
Benedict ended the mass with an unscripted message to the congregation.
"I will do all possible to be a real successor to Peter, who also was a man with all his faults and sins but who remains finally the rock for the church," the German-born pontiff said.
Clerics rose from the pews and held digital cameras aloft to snap photos of the pope as he slowly left the cathedral to the strains of a processional hymn.
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| Bishops attend mass with Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York |
Earlier, the same clerics had leaned across barriers to kiss the pope's ring, and a crowd of hundreds had pressed against metal barriers outside the cathedral to cheer the 81-year-old pontiff.
Benedict had been welcomed beneath the Gothic spires of the cathedral by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who earlier had said that only in New York, "which has long stood as a beacon of tolerance ... could a middle class kid named Bloomberg grow up and be asked to welcome the pope."
Bloomberg is Jewish, a community which Benedict has made a special effort to reach out to during his six-day US visit.
He held private meetings with Jewish leaders in Washington, the first leg of the two-city visit, and on Friday became the first pope to set foot in a Jewish place of worship.
Benedict entered Park East synagogue in New York on the eve of the Jewish feast of Passover, with Rabbi Arthur Schneier, an Austrian-born Jew who saw most of his family perish in the Holocaust.
The pope broke his usual reserve — and got the US secret service to break theirs — Friday evening, when he mingled with wellwishers outside the residence of the Vatican envoy to the United Nations where he is staying.
Benedict is due to wrap up his visit on Sunday, when he will visit Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan, site of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
In the afternoon, the pontiff will celebrate mass before some 55,000 people at Yankee stadium — a shrine to baseball which has been transformed into a huge outdoor cathedral — before returning to Rome.
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