Pope Benedict XVI makes historic White House visit
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday, but later chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said fueled the church's child sex scandal.
On the first papal visit to the White House in three decades, the Roman Catholic pontiff urged President George W. Bush to prefer diplomacy to war as a way of resolving conflicts.
But aside from mentioning the plight of Iraqi Christians, he skirted mention of the Iraq war, on which the Bush administration and Vatican do not see eye to eye.
Nor did he assuage critics of the church's handling of the vast pedophile priest scandal, who said he continues to protect complicit bishops.
But, in a move aimed at smoothing relations with Jews, upset over the revival of a Latin mass prayer that calls for their conversion to Christianity, Benedict scheduled meetings with Jewish community representatives in Washington and New York.
On the second day of his US trip -- his 81st birthday -- the pope drew raves sometimes more befitting a rock star than the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.
Some 13,500 people on the South Lawn of the White House sang "Happy Birthday" to him. And thousands gathered at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for evening prayer whooped, cheered and even whistled when his Popemobile pulled up outside.
The basilica's bells pealed, and inside the largest Catholic church in North America, people had no qualms about climbing onto pews to catch a glimpse as he entered, or delivering another round of "Happy Birthday" at the end of the service.
In a speech delivered after evening prayer, the pope berated US bishops for their poor handling of the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the church.
But, rather than blame the church, he pointed to a breakdown in the values that underpin society.
"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?" the pope lamented.
"Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships. They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today," he said.
Describing clerics who sexually abuse children as "gravely immoral," the pope warned that the scourge of pedophilia "is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society."
"It calls for a determined, collective response," he said, but did not outline any firm action that the Vatican intended to take to purge the church of pedophile priests.
The US Catholic church plunged into its worst crisis in 200 years in 2002 when the archbishop of Boston confessed he had protected a priest who had sexually abused young members of his church -- opening a floodgate of thousands of similar abuse cases around the country dating back decades.
Benedict angered victim support groups by praising the bishops' efforts to heal the wounds from the scandal.
"Five years ago, US bishops begrudgingly adopted some minimal promises on paper. There's no evidence to suggest they've had any real impact," Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told AFP.
"The pope continues to stand behind his men - the bishops who conceal clergy sex crimes," said another SNAP member, Joelle Casteix.
"What the pope should be doing is assuring Catholics worldwide that any bishop who shields a predator will lose his job and the priests will be swiftly defrocked," she said.
Earlier, in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office, Benedict and Bush expressed concern for Christians in war-torn Iraq, agreed on the need to create a Palestinian state, and said Lebanon must be free of undue foreign influence, according to a joint statement.
The pope urged the United States to treat immigrants humanely, and called on Americans to spurn materialism and shun secularism.
On Thursday Benedict will celebrate mass before 48,000 people in Washington's new baseball stadium, and also plans to meet with Jewish representatives after an inter-faith gathering at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington.
That, and a planned stop at a New York synagogue, appear aimed at quelling Jewish unhappiness over the revival for the Latin Rite mass of the 16th century "Prayer for Jews" in which Catholics pray for the conversion of Jews.
