Pope: Abuse crisis ‘badly handled’ by church

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 contradicting "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 on Thursday at a papal Mass.

Scandal causes 'deep shame'
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 last 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.

'Embrace a culture of justice'
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 first 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."

Larry Downing / Reuters Pope Benedict XVI listened to a band on the South Lawn of the White House as President Bush welcomed him to the United States on Wednesday. A crowd of more than 9,000 greeted the pontiff by singing "Happy Birthday" twice.

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 Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Celebration on the South Lawn
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 farther back could see.

Groups of Boy and Girl Scouts in their uniforms and members of the Knights of Columbus wore their traditional brightly colored feather headgear. Thousands unable to get inside filled Washington's streets as well, playing music and waving banners as they waited for a hoped-for glimpse of the pontiff passing by later in his popemobile.

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