Pope Meets with Abuse Victims - Second Update

Barbara Blaine, founder of an organization that advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse, said she thought it might happen - that Pope Benedict XVI would meet privately with some of the victims during his visit to Washington and New York.

In fact, she said, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, had requested just such a session in January. "Our request has been ignored," said Blaine, SNAP's president.

Nonetheless, the pope met at the Vatican embassy in Washington on Thursday afternoon with five victims, seeing each one in private for a few minutes. A Vatican spokesman said some wept.

By repeatedly returning to the issue of clergy sexual abuse, Pope Benedict has demonstrated that it matters to him. He has admitted his own shame at the scandal and spoken with affection for the victims. Keep in mind that within some church circles, there have been attempts to diminish the scandal - to charge that the news media have overplayed it and failed to pay heed to the reforms that have been made. 

Update: In fact (and thanks to John Allen of National Catholic Reporter for the reminder), then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger minimized the scandal in 2002 and assailed the American media for conducting a "campaign to discredit the Church." As pope, he has not gone down that road. He has even put the story back on front pages, and several days in a row.

By meeting with victims, the cerebral pontiff has connected on an emotional level. Despite that, something is still missing: The scandal is about a cover-up as well as about the actual sexual abuse. Pope Benedict seemed to allude to that by agreeing that the scandal was "at times very badly handled." We'll have to wait to see if he'll go further in addressing the church's institutional failure in this regard.

Until then, we have what SNAP called a "small and long overdue step forward on a very long road."

Update: The Boston Globe reports that Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who joined Pope Benedict, had arranged the meeting. The cardinal had tried to persuade the pope to visit Boston on his trip, saying it was the best place to address the sexual abuse scandal. The Globe's articles in January, 2002 focused on the cover-up in the Archdiocese of Boston.

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI at ceremony with interreligious leaders at John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington. Earlier, he met privately with victims of clergy sexual abuse.

In the dean's office

There was a bit of drama when the heads of all the nation's Catholic colleges were called into the dean's office at the same time. But they got off without a suspension or even a stern reprimand - just a reminder of who's in charge and what's expected of them.

However elegantly phrased, Pope Benedict XVI's lecture to leaders of the Catholic academic community didn't break new ground in the debate over how Catholic the Catholic colleges should be. This is a long-running issue; the Vatican set out its expectations in a 1990 document, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," and Benedict's comments reflected it. Nearly 20 years after that document, Catholic college campuses have continued to be divided by controversies over their Catholic identity, often centering around performances of the Eve Ensler play "The Vagina Monologues."

Beyond serving as a reminder that he takes "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" seriously, the pope's address fit a broader theme of his trip - a call for a renewed, hope-filled sense of Catholic mission. He delivered a similar message to the nation's bishops last night and to the faithful in a homily at Mass in Nationals Park today.

"A university or school's Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students," he said at one point. "It is a question of conviction."

Nor is Catholic identity "a question of statistics," he said, a reference to the debate over how much of a Catholic college's faculty should be Catholic. "Neither can it be equated simply with orthodoxy of course content," he said. "It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith."

Some may find the pope's definition of academic freedom to be unsettling. Benedict said he is all for it, but added, "Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."

But this was in line with the Vatican's 1990 document, so it should not have surprised anyone on the receiving end of the pope's lecture.

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI arrives at Catholic University. Getty/Mark Wilson

John Kerry Receives Communion at Papal Mass

Sen. John Kerry received communion at the Mass that Pope Benedict XVI celebrated today in Washington, The AP reports. That wouldn't normally be newsworthy - but for the fact that a huge controversy raged during the 2004 presidential campaign when a few bishops announced that they would deny the Eucharist to Kerry, a Catholic, because of his support for abortion rights.

Kerry, who received communion from a priest at a spot far off from the altar where the pope presided, said there was nothing political about it.

Catholic anti-abortion groups had been trying to stoke outrage over the prospect that Kerry, and other Catholic politicians with whom they disagree, would receive communion at the papal Mass. One group, the American Life League, announced that it would photograph them as they received communion.

The furor in the 2004 campaign has not prevented Kerry from receiving the Eucharist, which, according to Catholic teaching, is the "source and summit of the Christian life." According to Catholic News Service, Kerry received communion from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio to the United States, when he attended the installation Mass of Washington's Archbishop Donald Wuerl in 2006.

During the presidential race, a letter issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, was taken by some bishops as support for denying communion to Catholic politicians who supported the legal right to abortion.

After consulting with the Vatican, the U.S. Catholic bishops eventually came up with a policy - one that didn't really resolve the issue. It allowed each bishop to make his own judgment.

"Bishops can legitimately make different judgments on the most prudent course of pastoral action," it said. "Nevertheless, we all share an unequivocal commitment to protect human life and dignity and to preach the Gospel in difficult times. The polarizing tendencies of election-year politics can lead to circumstances in which Catholic teaching and sacramental practice can be misused for political ends."

Photo: Priest distributes communion during Mass at Nationals Park in Washington. Getty/Chip Somodevilla.

Music at Papal Mass a `Mish-Mash'?

Congregation at Nationals Park. Win McNamee/Getty Images.

The Archdiocese of Washington showed off the diversity of the American Catholic Church in the Mass that Pope Benedict XVI celebrated at the new Nationals Park today, using multiple languages in the prayers and featuring music that ranged from Latin (as in Latin American, not the ancient language) to spirituals to opera. It differed from Wednesday night's vespers service at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where songs and prayers in Latin (as in ancient Rome) predominated.

Not everyone was satisfied. Father Richard John Neuhaus, a prominent New York priest who is commenting on the papal visit for the conservative Catholic television network EWTN, called the music "a grand mish-mash" and a "liturgical stew ... which I expect tried Benedict's patience a good deal."

Benedict, of course, has encouraged wider use of the 1962 rite usually called the Latin Mass. But if he was less than captivated by the diverse music in Nationals Park, it didn't show.

It sounded good to me.

- Paul Moses

Pope Speaks on Hope for Healing

Like a musician on tour, Pope Benedict XVI is playing the songs from his most recent CD. From a stage-like altar in Nationals Park, he spoke at length about hope – a reprise of his encyclical, Spe Salvi, or "Saved by Hope."

"Americans have always been a people of hope," he said. "… And the Christian virtue of hope - the hope poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the hope which supernaturally purifies and corrects our aspirations by focusing them on the Lord and his saving plan - that hope has also marked, and continues to mark, the life of the Catholic community in this country."

And then the pope returned, for the third time in his journey, to speaking about the clergy sexual abuse scandal. "It is in the context of this hope born of God's love and fidelity that I acknowledge the pain which the Church in America has experienced as a result of the sexual abuse of minors," he said. "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention. Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the Church."

The pope applied his lofty ideals directly to the American church’s grittiest scandal – a move to heal wounds that are an obstacle to the church’s mission. He enlisted lay Catholics in this healing process:

"Yesterday I spoke with your bishops about this," he said. "Today I encourage each of you to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt. Also, I ask you to love your priests, and to affirm them in the excellent work that they do. And above all, pray that the Holy Spirit will pour out his gifts upon the Church, the gifts that lead to conversion, forgiveness and growth in holiness."

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass at Nationals Park. Getty.

Masses Arrive for Mass in Nationals Park

As the masses head for the papal Mass at Nationals Park in Washington (nicely described at Washingtonpost.com), I find myself still mulling over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks last night to the nation's Catholic bishops - in particular, in his responses to questions the bishops raised.

The pope dealt with the American  church's key problem, the quiet drift away of millions of Catholics who believe the essentials of the faith but gradually distance themselves from it. The pope found that part of the problem is in the culture, that there is little sense of the transcendent. But he also attributed the problem to a lack of creativity on the church's part - to worship services that fail to inspire, for example. He questioned the quality of preaching and whether Catholics are being taught properly to pray.

 I wonder if the bishop who asked the question expected such a critique; the question seemed to imply that the problem was with America's secularized culture, and not with the way the bishops are pursuing their mission.

So Pope Benedict has set out his critique. But what are his solutions? Is his answer to return to the past? We'll see what he has to say as he speaks to the faithful today in Washington.