Pope holds meetings with clergy abuse victims
Pope Benedict XVI today privately met Australians who were sexually abused as children by priests today, ending a pilgrimage to the country with a gesture of contrition over a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church.
The pontiff held prayers and spoke with four representatives of abuse victims - two men and two women - in the last hours of his nine-day visit to Australia to attend the Church's global youth festival.
The victims did not speak publicly after the meeting. Support groups for other victims dismissed the gesture as a public relations stunt.
The abuse scandal was a sour undertone to the trip for World Youth Day, which is supposed to be a celebration of faith to inspire a new generation.
On Saturday, Benedict delivered a forthright apology for the scandal, saying he was "deeply sorry" for the victims' suffering.
Victims said this was not enough however, and demanded that Benedict do more to provide financial compensation and psychological help for them.
The Vatican did not give details of the conversations between the Pope and the victims he met for about an hour today "as an expression of his ongoing pastoral concern for those who have been abused by members of the Church".
"He listened to their stories and offered them consolation," a Vatican statement said. "Assuring them of his spiritual closeness, he promised to continue to pray for them, their families and all victims.
"Through this paternal gesture, the holy father wished to demonstrate again his deep concern for all victims of sexual abuse," it said.
The Pope, who has made trying to repair damage caused by the scandal one of the themes of his papacy, held a similar meeting with clergy abuse victims in the United States in April.
Bernard Barrett of the Broken Rites group, which estimates there are thousands of clergy sexual abuse cases in Australia, said the victims met by the Pope were carefully chosen as people who would not cause trouble.
"It doesn't alter things because it's purely public relations," Mr Barrett told the Fairfax Radio Network. "I think it's a cynical exercise."
Benedict left Australia for Rome midmorning on a chartered plane.
At a brief ceremony at the airport, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thanked the Pope for coming and announced that Australia would post an ambassador in the Vatican for the first time. Former conservative Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer will take up the post next year.
In his apology, Benedict said he wanted "to acknowledge the shame, which we have all felt" about the clergy abuse and called for those responsible to be "brought to justice".
Representatives of the victims of clergy sexual abuse said the apology must be backed by Vatican orders to Australian bishops to stop what they say are efforts to cover up the extent of the problem and to block survivors' attempts to win compensation.
Benedict's pilgrimage to Australia was his furthest journey yet of his three-year papacy, and one intended to inspire a new generation of faithful while trying to overcome the dark chapter for his church from the sex abuse scandal.
Summing up his message, Benedict told pilgrims at a Mass yesterday that a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and challenged them to shed greed and cynicism to create a new age of hope.
The Vatican said some 350,000 faithful from almost 170 countries packed the Randwick racecourse - many of them camping out in sleeping bags in the mild chill of the Australian winter - to hear the pope.
Benedict touched on themes for the universal church as well as Australia in particular - raising the need for the world to change its lifestyles because of global warming, relations with non-Catholics and the struggle here to rejuvenate a crisis-battered Church.
Benedict announced to the pilgrims that Madrid, Spain would host the next World Youth Day in 2011.
