NEW YORK (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI Sunday became the first pontiff to pray at Ground Zero, the site where nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The pope arrived under tight security and was greeted by scores of invited guests, including 24 relatives of victims and survivors of the attacks who began gathering early Sunday at the site in lower Manhattan.
Tom Riches, who carried his firefighter brother's body out of the site, was returning there with Benedict.
"Since that day, it's always been sacred to me," Riches told the Sun Sentinel newspaper. "Him blessing the ground there will make it official."
Benedict was being escorted to a yellow carpet at the site by Cardinal Edward Egan, the archbishop of New York, before kneeling in silent prayer.
He was then to light a candle brought to him by an employee of the Port Authority, which lost several employees on 9/11. Benedict was also to bless the ground in all four directions.
"God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world," the head of the Roman Catholic Church was to implore in his prayer, according to the Vatican.
"We ask you in your goodness to give eternal light and peace to all who died here -- the heroic first responders ... along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy," he said.
"We are mindful as well of those who suffered death, injury and loss on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania."
After the visit to Ground Zero, Benedict was to celebrate Mass for 55,000 people at Yankee stadium, the second huge congregation of the six-day visit after a service in the Washington Nationals baseball stadium in the US capital.
During his US tour, the German-born pontiff has marked several firsts -- the visit to Ground Zero, the first mass celebrated by a pope in the 150-year-old St Patrick's cathedral in New York, and the first visit by a Roman Catholic leader to a synagogue in the United States.
During Saturday's Mass, the pope pledged his support for Roman Catholic clerics as they struggle to come to terms with a sex scandal that he said "has caused so much suffering" and damaged "the community of the faithful."
Benedict XVI celebrated his 81st birthday at the White House on April 16, and the third anniversary of his election to the papacy in New York Saturday.
Benedict did not shy away from controversy during the trip, repeatedly addressing the sex scandal that has rocked the US Church both financially and morally.
And the pope won over many Americans, who had expected to welcome a more shy and reserved man than his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II.
The pope broke his usual reserve -- and got the US Secret Service to break theirs -- Friday evening, when he mingled with hundreds of wellwishers outside the residence of the Vatican envoy to the United Nations where he was staying.
One was wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan: "I (heart) my German Shepherd."
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