Pope Benedict XVI met victims of sex abuse by priests before flying out of Australia yesterday, wrapping up a visit marked by his historic apology for the scourge of pedophilia in the Catholic Church.
The pope, who two days earlier had publicly expressed his “shame” over the “evils” of clerical child abuse, celebrated mass with four Australian victims and offered them consolation, the Vatican said.
“Assuring them of his spiritual closeness, he promised to continue to pray for them, their families and all victims,” a statement said.
“Through this paternal gesture, the Holy Father wished to demonstrate again his deep concern for all those who have suffered sexual abuse,” the statement said.
Benedict met two male and two female victims at St Mary’s Cathedral shortly before leaving Sydney after a nine-day visit, during which he led hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in World Youth Day celebrations.
“As I bid you farewell with deep gratitude in my heart, may God bless the people of Australia,” the 81-year-old pope said before boarding his chartered Qantas Boeing 747-400 for the nearly 21-hour journey to Rome.
He was seen off at the airport by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a committed Christian, who announced that former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer would become Australia’s first resident ambassador to the Vatican.
After the pope left, Sydney airport faced one of its busiest days on record as more than 100,000 foreign pilgrims from some 170 countries headed home.
For a week, they transformed a city that usually worships sun and surf and is known as one of the gay capitals of the world into a vast cathedral teeming with hymn-singing Catholics.
World Youth Day was launched in 1986 by the late pope John Paul II to help stem the flow of young Catholics away from the once-dominant church in an age of growing secularism in the Western world.
But the controversy of sex abuse partly overshadowed the pope’s trip and he went further than ever before in his public comments on an issue that has plagued the Church globally.
Benedict told a mass for clergy on Saturday that he was “deeply sorry” for the abuse of children by predatory priests and called for the guilty to be punished and for victims to be compensated.
Some Australian victims dismissed the pope’s apology as simple rhetoric without action and said he should have apologized in front of victims, not other priests.
Even after the pope met the four victims yesterday, prominent support group Broken Rites said it was concerned that they had been hand-picked.
“I’m afraid that what they’ve done is selected victims who have agreed with what the Church’s policies are,” spokeswoman Chris MacIsaac said.
She said the pope should have met with Anthony Foster, the father of two girls abused by a priest, who cut short a holiday in Britain to return to Australia in the hope of meeting the pontiff.
Foster, whose one daughter committed suicide this year at the age of 26 after struggling for years to deal with abuse suffered at primary school, said the pope’s failure to meet him showed a “lack of compassion.”
But the leader of the Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, said it was not possible for the pope to give a personal apology to every Australian victim of sex abuse.
“It was a small gathering which we hope will send out a message of the genuine sorrow of the pope and of the Australian bishops,” he told a news conference.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS