UNITED STATES:The pope's decision to directly confront child abuse has been received positively, writes Denis Stauntonin New York.
FR ROBERT Hoatson was among tens of thousands of Catholics who came to Yankee Stadium from all over the United States to see Pope Benedict XVI yesterday but the New Jersey priest came not to pray but to protest.
A former Christian Brother who is suspended from his priestly duties, Fr Hoatson was carrying a large picture of his cousin James who was sexually abused by a priest and later committed suicide.
Despite his enduring outrage over the church's response to clerical child abuse, Fr Hoatson said he was happily surprised by the way the pope addressed the issue during his six-day US visit.
"I think it's very encouraging that he met with victims for the first time. I'm cautiously optimistic because he has not walked the talk for very long," he said.
"Remember, for 20 years he was involved in all of this with Pope John Paul II as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was he who handled all these cases. So we're hoping that he has now turned his heart towards us, that he will now give us a plan of attack as to how he's going to erase this plague that has afflicted the church."
Pope Benedict started talking about the child abuse scandal, which has implicated thousands of priests and cost the US church $2 billion, before he landed in Washington last week and addressed the issue every day during his visit. It was the pope's unprecedented meeting with survivors of clerical sex abuse, however, which impressed most Americans, including Fr Hoatson.
"I'm somewhat surprised that he has mentioned it as often as he has. I thought he'd probably mention it maybe once or twice but the fact that he's taken the bull by the horns, so to speak, says to me that he's beginning to understand the depth of this issue. This is slowly imploding our church and I think he's realising that and that's encouraging news," he said.
"As we've been standing here with these signs, Catholics have been walking by and saying the usual things, you know, "Get a life" and "get outta here" and now we can say, 'you don't agree with the pope that this is as serious as it is?'"
Outside the stadium, Catholics waving papal flags stood quietly as anti-Catholic groups shouted abuse about the pope and the church. The Westboro Baptist Church, which pickets the funerals of fallen US soldiers because it says their deaths are divine retribution for America's tolerance of homosexuality, carried placards with obscene messages and another group shouted that "the Catholic Church is from the devil".
Most of the crowd was good-natured, however, including many who were not Catholics but who wanted to glimpse the pope as he passed.
"I've come to witness history and I want to learn more about him," said 14-year-old Deandre Bryant from the Bronx, who had already waited five hours.
"I go to a community church but I don't really go often but I heard he's the closest to God."
Inside the stadium, stars like José Feliciano, soul singer Stephanie Mills and Harry Connick jnr entertained the crowd, along with the Harlem Gospel Choir and a New Orleans jazz band.
In a culture that puts a premium on personal magnetism, the pontiff's visit to the US was expected to pale beside those of his charismatic predecessor John Paul II. Pope Benedict's visit came at a moment of acute crisis for the American church, not only because of the child abuse scandal but on account of the deepening divisions between liberals and conservatives within the church.
His decision, therfore, to confront so powerfully the issue of child abuse amplified the central message of his visit, which was a call for Catholics to overcome their differences and to work through the pain of revelations about priestly misconduct.
"I have already had occasion to speak of this, and of the resulting damage to the community of the faithful," he told almost 3,000 priests, deacons and seminarians at New York's St Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday.
"I simply wish to assure you, dear priests and religious, of my spiritual closeness as you strive to respond with Christian hope to the continuing challenges this situation presents. I join you in praying that this will be a time of purification for each and every particular church and religious community, and a time for healing."
Although the pope addressed controversial issues such as immigration and human rights, he mostly steered clear of others, notably homosexuality and contraception and spoke of abortion only in oblique terms.
At St Patrick's, he called for reconciliation and for a spirit of openness and tolerance guided by faith in God.
"In the light of faith, we will then discover the wisdom and strength needed to open ourselves to points of view which may not necessarily conform to our own ideas or assumptions," he said.
"Thus, we can value the perspectives of others, be they younger or older than ourselves, and ultimately hear what the Spirit is saying to us and to the church."