Pope Benedict XVI admitted that the Roman Catholic Church had been "wounded by our sins" as he landed in Malta on his first foreign visit since the explosion of sexual abuse revelations involving priests.
By Nick Squires
Telegraph
April 17, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7601845/Pope-arrives-in-Malta-on-first-foreign-visit-since-sex-scandal.html
Talking briefly on his plane - a turbo-prop which could fly from Rome with little threat from the volcanic ash cloud - Benedict did not specifically mention the abuse scandal.
But a Vatican spokesman said it was it was to this that the Pope was alluding when he told accompanying reporters, his voice sounding hoarse: "Malta loves Christ who loves his Church which is his body, even if this body is wounded by our sins."
Cheers erupted among crowds in Valletta, the island's capital, as giant screens showed the Pope's arrival at the nearby airport, and excited wellwishers held aloft giant red and gold papal banners on stretches of his short drive into the city, whose 16th century Baroque churches were draped in yellow and white Vatican flags. It was a hopeful beginning to his 26-hour visit.
His visit to Malta is officially to mark the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck on the island, which now proudly describes itself as the world's most Catholic country, with 98 per cent of its people loyal to Rome.
"I feel very proud that he is here," said Felix Rizzo, 56, a shop owner. "There are many bigger countries that he could have chosen to visit, but he came to see us in Malta."
Mary Sammut, 44, a child minder who was waving a flag bearing the Pope's picture and the words "Viva il Papa", said: "It's very nice to have him here. Everyone is happy that he is visiting us on Malta for the first time. My friends and family are very excited."
Archbishop Paul Cremona hoped that the Pope's visit would be "a powerful experience" and that up to 50,000 people would attend today's open-air mass.
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| Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowds as he arrives at the Presidential Palace in Malta |
But other Maltese seemed underwhelmed, even hostile, and contrasted him unfavourably with his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II, who visited the former British colony in 1990 and 2001.
"People are very aware of the sex abuse scandal hanging over him," said Darren Galea, 26, a chef.
Catherine, a 66-year-old housewife who asked that her surname not be used, said: "This visit is costing Malta a lot of money," said. "Last week in church they were asking for contributions but I didn't give anything. I'm pretty sure the Vatican has got more money than me."
Bendict could be forgiven for feeling a pang of envy today when he surveys the great stone ramparts which encircle Malta's historic capital.
The massive bastions and harbour walls have guarded this island fortress in the Mediterranean since they were built in the 16th century by the Knights of St John and have seen off Turkish corsairs, Barbary pirates and the Luftwaffe.
The Pope, by contrast, is still shoring up his own defences against accusations that the Catholic Church tolerated decades of sexual abuse of children by paedophile priests.
The sex abuse scandals which first surfaced in America and have recently swept through Europe have also touched Malta.
Benedict faces calls to for an apology to 10 Maltese men, now in their thirties, who say they were abused by Catholic priests when they were growing up in a Church-run orphanage. The group claim that during years of sexual abuse at the Catholic-run orphanage, St Joseph Home, in the 1980s, priests would wake them up in the morning by kissing and fondling them.
"An hour later the priest would hold Mass and we would have to take the wafer from his hands, it was disgusting," said one victim, Joseph Magro, 38.
A police investigation has now been launched but an internal Church inquiry which began seven years ago has yet to pronounce on the men's allegations.
The Maltese Catholic Church revealed recently that a paedophilia "response team" it set up in 1999 had received complaints against 45 priests, of which nearly half had so far been ruled groundless. It added, however: "For the Church, every case is one too many."
The men said an apology would help heal the emotional scars of the abuse. "But we will only be really healed by seeing these priests go to jail," said Lawrence Grech, 37, who is married with two children.
Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, has said the pope would not bow to "media pressure" to meet with abuse victims in Malta and noted that the pontiff's programme was "already very tight."
Last week vandals shocked many in Malta by defacing billboards promoting the papal visit, daubing Hitler moustaches on images of the embattled Pope.
This should be a happy weekend for Benedict, who celebrated his 83rd birthday on Friday and will commemorate the fifth anniversary of his election to the Holy See tomorrow.
Instead, assailed by accusations that he himself protected known abusers as the archbishop of Munich in the 1980s and in Vatican posts before his election as pontiff, he face continued fire from within and beyond the Catholic church.
His stewardship of the world's one billion Catholics was recently declared a "failed papacy" by a respected news magazine in his native Germany, Der Spiegel.
Last week Hans Küng, a Swiss theologian and former colleague of the Pope, said that Benedict's papacy had been one of "missed opportunities and chances not taken." In an open letter to Catholic bishops around the world, he said the Church was going through the "worst crisis of confidence since the Reformation".
But others maintain that the Pope - who last month wrote an unprecedented letter to Irish Catholics apologising to victims of abusive priests - is utterly determined to stamp out such acts.
"He has done more than anyone in the Roman Curia (the Vatican's administration) to confront this head-on," said Jason Berry, a US-based Vatican expert and the author of books on clerical sex abuse. "He was the lone guy on the scene who really took this problem seriously a decade ago."
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