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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS