Ottawa Citizen

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

Reuters

Thursday, April 17, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On the third day of his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict will celebrate Mass in Washington's new baseball stadium, address Catholic educators and meet with leaders of five non-Christian religions.

More than 45,000 Catholics who received the sought-after tickets will pack Nationals Park for Thursday's Mass, the first of two that Benedict will say while in the United States. He also plans a Mass in New York's Yankee Stadium on Sunday.

Benedict has spoken twice of his "deep shame" at the scandal of priests sexually abusing minors and his sermon at the Mass could be another occasion to mention the scandal that rocked the Church in 2002 and cost U.S. dioceses $2 billion in damages.

His speech to the heads of Catholic universities and schools has prompted media speculation that he will chide the educators for not defending Church teachings and enforcing Church moral codes strongly enough.

But Benedict has avoided controversy so far, preferring to impart an upbeat message to his audience even if he expresses concern about certain issues, and experts expect any criticism to be mild.

"My guess is that Benedict might present a strong statement about Catholic character, but probably not what I would call a rebuke," said Timothy Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

"There are varied views on whether a rebuke is warranted. My own is that I have some concerns, but on the whole the Catholic colleges and universities perform superb service for the Church, Catholics and the wider society," he said.

The Roman Catholic Church runs 251 institutes of higher education in the United States, far more than anywhere else in the world, but many of them have more non-Catholic teachers and students than several decades ago.

Many of the leading Catholic universities say they cannot keep up their academic reputations if they do not take the best faculty and students, regardless of religion.

This has led to concern in the Church that these universities were losing their specifically Catholic identity and becoming little different from secular institutions.

The inter-faith meeting, a regular feature of his travels abroad, will bring Benedict together with 220 members of the Jewish, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu religions.

A Sikh religious leader was barred by the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for security during the visit, because he insisted on wearing the "kirpan" ceremonial dagger that all baptized Sikhs are supposed to carry with them.

(For more on religion, see the Reuters religion blog FaithWorld at http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld )

© Reuters 2008

Sex-abuse scandal 'very badly handled': Pope

Toronto Globe & Mail

PHILIP PULLELLA AND TOM HENEGHAN

Reuters

April 16, 2008 at 7:22 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict on Wednesday acknowledged the Church had handled the pedophile priests scandal "very badly" and told U.S. bishops to bind up wounds and seek reconciliation with those who were "so seriously wronged."

For the second consecutive day, the Pope said the scandal had caused "deep shame" and enormous pain as the result of priests betraying their vocation by sexually abusing minors with such "gravely immoral behaviour."

After visiting the White House on Wednesday morning and praying with President George W. Bush, he dedicated a section of a speech to the bishops to the scandal that rocked the Church starting in 2002 and has forced U.S. dioceses to pay over $2-billion (U.S.) in damages.

"It is your God-given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged," he said.

He said he agreed with an assessment by the head of the U.S. bishops conference that the crisis had been "sometimes very badly handled" and that only recently was "the scale and the gravity of the problem" more clearly understood.

The Church was criticized for transferring known abusers rather than defrocking them or turning them over to police.

"While it must be remembered that the overwhelming majority of clergy and religious in America do outstanding work ... it is vitally important that the vulnerable always be shielded by those who would cause harm," Benedict told the bishops at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

But he said the problem ran deeper, saying children should be "spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent" in society today.

PRAYING IN THE WHITE HOUSE

On Wednesday morning, the Pope made just the second visit by a pontiff to the White House and urged Americans and their leaders to base social and political decisions on moral principles to create a more just society.

During the visit, the Pope and Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, who are Methodists, prayed together for the institution of the family, a Vatican spokesman said.

Both Mr. Bush and the Pope have said the traditional family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman, is under threat.

"I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society," Pope Benedict said after Mr. Bush welcomed him at a garden ceremony that included a fife and drum band in colonial garb and a 21-gun salute.

As some 10,000 people applauded, Mr. Bush cited the role of faith in U.S. life, saying, "Here in America, you'll find a nation of prayer."

Bush referred to the Sept. 11 attacks, which the Pope will commemorate when he prays at Ground Zero, the New York site where the World Trade Center towers once stood. "In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that God is love," he said.

The Pope smiled as the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" and was treated to a large white cake inside the White House.

He sprinkled his speech with references to the U.S. founding fathers – citing the Declaration of Independence and the first president, George Washington.

But he made no specific references to issues such as abortion and the Iraq war, avoiding anything that could be seen as commentary on the presidential campaign apart from saying that freedom demanded "reasoned public debate."

Pope Benedict and Mr. Bush oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell research but differ on the Iraq war and capital punishment. As the Pope spoke, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling clearing the way for executions to resume.

As U.S. and Vatican flags fluttered, it was Mr. Bush who referred to abortion, a hot-button issue particularly with the presidential election in November. "In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred," he said.

Outside the White House, some 200 people protested, with one banner reading: "Catholic priests are pedophiles." But the overwhelming number of those who lined his motorcade route welcomed the Pope with joy, dancing and shaking tambourines as they waited for hours to glimpse him.

Pope addresses American bishops on abuse scandal, challenges facing the Church

WASHINGTON -- Addressing the American bishops Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a frank assessment of the challenges facing the Catholic Church in the United States. After leading the bishops in an evening prayer service marked by the traditional music and use of Latin that Benedict favours, he delivered a lengthy speech that emphasized the need for a strong Catholic witness in public life, the need for healing after the sexual abuse crisis, and the danger of drifting away from the faith into a "quiet apostasy".

"It strikes me that here in America, unlike many places in Europe, the secular mentality has not been intrinsically opposed to religion," he said, praising America's tradition of religious liberty and tolerance. "Within the context of the separation of Church and State, American society has always been marked by a fundamental respect for religion and its public role, and, if polls are to be believed, the American people are deeply religious."

At the same time, such religious tolerance can "subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator" in which faith is separated from everyday life, and "each person believes he or she has a right to pick and choose, maintaining external social bonds but without an integral, interior conversion to the law of Christ. ... We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion."

Earlier in the day, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and one such Catholic, made a very public act of reverence at the White House, kissing the papal ring -- perhaps anticipating such direct correction.

Cardinal Francis George, president of the American bishops, acknowledged that the sexual abuse crisis had "been very badly handled" by some bishops in his welcome address. Benedict took the invitation to speak directly to the bishops' responsibility.

"As you strive to eliminate this evil wherever it occurs, you may be assured of the prayerful support of God's people throughout the world," Benedict said. "Rightly, you attach priority to showing compassion and care to the victims. It is your God-given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged.... It is vitally important that the vulnerable always be shielded from those who would cause harm."

Benedict placed the "the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores," identifying in particular the scourge of pornography. "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" Benedict asked.

Speaking as one bishop to another, the pope told the bishops that they were to be models of the Christian life they preach to others: "Time spent in prayer is never wasted, however urgent the duties that press upon us from every side."

Such interior life is essential to avoid the separation of everyday life from the life of faith, the pope argued, noting the "alarming decrease in Catholic marriages", the dramatic decline in priestly vocations, and the temptation to drift away from church observance.

Earlier in the day, Benedict was formally welcomed at the White House by U.S. President George W. Bush, who gave him the most prominent welcome of his administration. Mr. Bush told the pope that America "needs his message" that God is love against the threat of religious violence; that the truth can be known against the emptiness of moral relativism; and that every life is sacred against attempts to debase or degrade human life.

"I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel, and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society," Benedict said in response. "From the dawn of the Republic, America's quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator." Both men noted that the Declaration of Independence rooted its claim to political liberty in an appeal to the "laws of nature and nature's God."

Benedict and Bush then had a private meeting, in which they discussed religious liberty and human rights, the Mideast with particular reference to Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli question, sustainable development, AIDS, immigration and terrorism.

Meeting on Benedict's 81st birthday, the crowd spontaneously sung "Happy Birthday", and it was included in the formal program as well as Benedict greeted the crowds from the White House balcony. Last evening concluded with a special White House dinner in honour of the papal visit, even though Benedict himself did not attend. It included all five Catholic Supreme Court justices, as well as prominent Catholics in Congress and cultural life.

National Post