Pope meets, prays with priests' abuse victims

WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI talked and prayed Thursday with a small group of victims who as children were sexually abused by their priests, the first publicly known meeting between a pontiff and victims since the most recent scandal erupted in Boston six years ago.

The 25-minute meeting at the Vatican Embassy put a personal focus on the subject that has become an important part of the pope's U.S. visit. It followed a morning Mass that Benedict celebrated for about 45,000 people at Nationals Park, the new baseball stadium in Washington.

Later, he met with interfaith leaders and Catholic educators, telling the latter not to stray from the mission of the church. The pope's visit to the nation's capital ends today, when he flies to New York, where he will meet with United Nations officials.

The Mass was the third time in as many days that the pope addressed the sex-abuse issue, telling the crowd: "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. ... Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the church."

A few hours later, he met with at least five abuse victims, middle-aged men and women from Boston.

Benedict requested the meeting, said Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Boston archbishop, who was present during the gathering.

"It was very positive, healing I think, and very prayerful," O'Malley said, describing some of the victims as being in tears.

Each of the victims had a brief private conversation with the pope. Afterward, O'Malley gave Benedict a list of more than 1,000 people victimized over the years in the Boston archdiocese and asked the pope to pray for them.

Three of the participants spoke about the meeting on CNN, all saying they drew hope and some optimism from it.

"I basically told him I was an altar boy in the sacristy praying to God ... and it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was spiritual abuse," said Bernie McDaid. "I told him he had a cancer in his church" he needed to address.

Olan Horne said participants were allowed to tell the pope anything they wanted. He said he didn't think he needed another hollow apology from the church, but that the pope showed sincere regret and offered him hope.

Victims' advocates called the meeting and Benedict's comments progress, but they said they fell short of what the pope must do to address the abuse.

"It's easy to give a sermon about this," said Terry McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org of Massachusetts. "It's a little harder to face a victim who's been raped by one of your employees and listen to him and say you're sorry. But the really hard part comes when you start doing something about it."

The pope had additional healing to do at his evening encounter with Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religious leaders. On a previous trip, to his German homeland, Benedict had set off a paroxysm of anger with comments that appeared to denigrate Islam. He has also offended Jewish leaders by reinstituting a prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the Latin prayers on Good Friday.

On Thursday, he offered an olive branch to Jewish leaders, and affirmed that all religions should have a common goal of working for peace.

Material from The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and The New York Times is included in this report.