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Pope vows to bar pedophiles becoming priests
By Philip Pullella

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Tuesday he was "deeply ashamed" over sexual abuse of children by priests and vowed to do everything possible to stop pedophiles entering the priesthood in future.

"We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry," he told reporters accompanying him on his first trip as pope to the United States.

"We are deeply ashamed and will do whatever is possible so that this does not happen in the future," he said on board the plane to Washington.

The U.S. trip is the first by a pontiff since a wave of sex abuse scandals began in 2002, provoking lawsuits that have forced dioceses to pay more than $2 billion in settlements.

Benedict said the Church will do everything possible in screening candidates for the priesthood "so that only really sound persons can be admitted."

"It is more important to have good priests than to have many priests," said the pontiff, who will be greeted upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base by U.S. President George W. Bush.

The pope is expected to discuss sexual abuse again during the six-day trip to the United States, during which he also will pray at Ground Zero in New York and address the United Nations.

Flagging the issue ahead of arrival, he said abuse had caused "great suffering" to the Church in the United States.

"If I read the histories of these victims, it's difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give the love of God to these children," he said.

A poll released this month by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed the German-born pope was viewed favorably by most Americans, but was not as popular as his predecessor John Paul II.

The pope, who will also mark the third anniversary of his election during the trip, has said he hopes the visit will lead to a spiritual renewal in America.

He addresses the United Nations on Friday and has said he aims to draw attention to the need for greater peace and justice around the world.

In New York, Benedict will also make a brief stop at a synagogue to wish the city's Jewish community a happy Passover.

He ends the trip on Sunday after visiting Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. He will also say Mass at Yankee Stadium.

(Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

The Holy Father arrived at EXACTLY 4pm - and even entered the building at exactly the scheduled moment.

This is the first time the Holy Father, leader of the worlds Catholic Church, has visited since before 9/11 - and the first time for Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedit XVI

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Pope Benedict said on Tuesday he was "deeply ashamed" over sexual abuse of children by priests and vowed to do everything possible to stop pedophiles entering the priesthood in future.

Well what did they do in the past? And what will or can they do differently now? Ask them if they are pedophiles? I know some people think that the pope is 'all knowing', but even the pope can't guarantee this one!!

How can ya filter that??? It's a dont ask and dont tell policy???? Really who would know before hand?? Is there a special test??? There is a test before entering mortuary science-------and what is the Catholic church about, self discipline until death and resurrection of the soul.....it is a 'science' of death....purgatory anyone????

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....purgatory anyone????

I thought they got rid of prgatory a couple of years back ?

No. that is why they have mass cards for dead folks.....

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Crowd greets pontiff in D.C.
Benedict ‘deeply ashamed’ of sex abuse scandal
BY VICTOR L. SIMPSON
The Associated Press

    ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. — Pope Benedict XVI stepped onto U.S. soil for the first time as pontiff Tuesday, arriving to a presidential handshake and wild cheering only hours after he admitted that he is “deeply ashamed” of the clergy sex abuse scandal that has devastated the American church.
    Benedict gave h u n d r e d s o f spectators a twohanded wave as he stepped off a special Alitalia airliner that brought him from Rome. Students from a local Catholic school screamed ecstatically when they saw the pope, who shook hands warmly with President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and their daughter Jenna on the tarmac.
    Hundreds of onlookers, some from local Roman Catholic parishes, clapped and shouted as they watched the scene from nearby bleachers.
    Benedict tackled the most painful issue facing the U.S. Catholic Church — clergy sex abuse — on his flight to America. The U.S. church has paid out $2 billion in abuse costs since 1950, most of that in just the past six years.
    Seemingly in a nod to his Ameri- can flock, the pope spoke in English as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters.
    “It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.
    “I am deeply ashamed, and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” the pope said.
    Benedict pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Catholic Church.
    “I do not wish to talk at this moment about homosexuality, but about pedophilia, which is another thing,” he said.
    “We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”
    Gary Bergeron, who was molested by a priest in the 1970s in Lowell, Mass., called the comments a “step I’ve been looking for.”
    Bergeron said he was disappointed that Benedict did not plan to visit the Archdiocese of Boston, the scene of a case that sparked the greater scandal, but urged the pontiff to meet with victims this week.
    The pope’s promise failed to mollify other advocates for abuse victims, however.
    They said the problem is not just molester priests but bishops and other church authorities who have let errant clergymen continue to serve even after repeated allegations.
    “It’s easy and tempting to continually focus on the pedophile priests themselves,” said Peter Isely, a board member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “It’s harder but crucial to focus on the broader problem — complicity in the rest of the church hierarchy.”
    Benedict’s pilgrimage is the first trip by a pontiff to the United States since the Boston case in 2002 triggered a crisis that spread throughout the United States and beyond.
    Hundreds of new charges — many dating back decades — have surfaced each year since. There were 691 new accusations in 2007 alone, according to an annual report from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
    As head of the Vatican agency that enforces adherence to Catholic doctrine, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was heavily involved in gaining Vatican approval for the reforms U.S. bishops proposed for the American church.
    The bishops have since released several reports analyzing the scandal and have pledged that all credibly accused priests will be pulled from public ministry.
    Benedict described his pilgrimage as a journey to meet a “great people and a great church.” He spoke about the American model of religious values within a system of separation of church and state.
    President Bush made the unusual gesture of greeting Benedict at Andrews Air Force Base — the first time he has welcomed a foreign leader there.
    The two will meet again today, when a crowd of 9,000 or more is expected at the White House to greet Benedict on his 81st birthday.
    Aides say he is in good health and the pope seemed spry as he stepped energetically off the plane Tuesday.
    Benedict said he will discuss immigration with Bush, including the difficulties of families who are separated by immigration.
    While the pope and Bush differ on such major issues on the Iraq war, capital punishment and the U.S. embargo against Cuba, they do find common ground in opposing abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research.
    White House press secretary Dana Perino said she wouldn’t rule out the sex abuse being discussed between the pope and the president but added that it’s not necessarily one of Bush’s top priorities in his meeting with Benedict.
    Perino said the two leaders would likely discuss human rights, religious tolerance and the fi ght against violent extremism. She downplayed their differences over Iraq.
    Benedict “will hear from the president that America and the world need to hear his message, that God is love, that human life is sacred, that we all must be guided by common moral law and that we have responsibilities to care for our brothers and sisters in need, at home and across the world,” Perino said.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Benedict: Scandal ‘badly handled’
Pope has criticism over sex abuse
BY VICTOR L. SIMPSON The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Feted at the White House on his 81st birthday, Pope Benedict XVI praised Americans for their deep religious beliefs Wednesday but later told the nation’s bishops that the scourge of clergy sex abuse had sometimes been “very badly handled.”
    Benedict’s comments, his toughest critique yet of the U.S. church’s worst problem, marked the second day in a row that he addressed the abuse scandal. They came as he addressed the nation’s bishops at the imposing Immaculate Conception shrine.
    He also reminded the prelates that religion cannot only be considered a “private matter” without any bearing on public behavior.
    The pontiff questioned how Catholics could ignore church teaching on sex, exploit or ignore the poor or adopt positions contradiciting “the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death.
    “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted,” he said.
    Benedict’s remarks came on a day when all of the five Catholic justices on the U.S. Supreme Court approved the most widely used method of lethal injection and congressional representatives who support abortion rights said they planned to take Holy Communion today at a papal Mass.
    Benedict returned to the clergy sex abuse scandal that has cost the American church more than $2 billion, most paid out to victims in the past six years, calling it a cause of “deep shame.” He decried the “enormous pain” that communities have suffered from such “gravely immoral behavior” by priests.
    Benedict addressed clerical molesters in the wider context of secularism and the over-sexualization of America.
    “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?” he asked.
    The pope spoke after Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
    George said that the consequences of the clergy abuse scandal “and of its being sometimes very badly handled by bishops makes both the personal faith of some Catholics and the public life of the church herself more problematic.”
    Benedict agreed with that assessment.
“Responding to this situation has not been easy, and as the president of your episcopal conference has indicated, it was sometimes very badly handled,” he said.
    The German-born pope began his first full day in America with a visit to the White House, where a South Lawn crowd of more than 13,500 sang “Happy Birthday” and President Bush said that the fi rst papal White House visit in 29 years was a reminder for Americans to “distinguish between simple right and wrong.
    “We need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism and embrace a culture of justice and truth,” Bush said. “In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves but in a spirit of mutual support.”
    The pontiff said that he was visiting “as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society.”
    His 90-minute visit to the White House — only the second ever by a pope — was accompanied by the kind of pomp and pageantry rarely seen even on grounds accustomed to welcoming royalty and the world’s most important leaders.
    After their meeting in the Oval Office, Bush and the pope were joined by Laura Bush, and the three “prayed for the [institution] of the family,” said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
    On a glorious spring day, lampposts fluttered with flags in the red, white and blue of America and yellow and white of the Holy See. The vast South Lawn was filled nearly to bursting with the largest crowd of Bush’s presidency, requiring a large television screen so those further back could see.
    Groups of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts were on hand in their uniforms, and members of the Knights of Columbus wore their traditional brightly colored feather headgear.