There were tears in the chapel. The 256th direct bureaucratic successor of Peter, the first pope, the fisherman from the lake in Galilee and friend of Jesus, was listening.
Five middle-age Catholic men and women were telling him the stories of how, as children, they had been sexually abused by priests -– the men they had looked up to for safety and comfort, for absolution for their souls and for access to God, their creator.
Now, the top boss -- the absolute monarch of the Catholic Church who is in charge of all priests and bishops -- was listening to their stories, apologizing, telling them of the deep pain it caused him personally and saying he would do everything possible to make sure it never happened again.
There were no cameras or recorders, and only a few other clergy present.
For Catholics, the pope is also literally the official representative on Earth of Christ himself, "The vicar of Christ," the son of God.
So his attention to their personal stories of abuse was not without weight -- and some of the victims were moved to tears.
It was also unprecedented.
No pope had ever met formally and officially with victims of sex abuse by priests, though it had been requested countless times.
"It was the first act of an official reconciliation between victims and the Catholic Church," the Rev. Keith Pecklers, an American professor of theology in the Vatican, told ABC News.
"This is just the beginning," Pecklers said. "It's going to take years and years and years to get on with this. But it can begin here."
Priests we talked to seemed greatly relieved that, at last, what felt to them like an authentic beginning of full acknowledgement for the American church's greatest tragedy had at least begun the process of healing.
"It was a terrible wound on the body of the church," the Rev. Thomas Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University told ABC. "Now that wound has been stitched up, the blood is no longer flowing, but it hasn't healed and it's also very painful."
"It's going to take time for the pain to go away," he said. "It's going to take time for that wound to heal."
Reese, who expressed delight upon first learning of the historic meeting when ABC News informed him of it by phone, has met with a number of victims of sex abuse by priests.
"What I've heard from so many victims," he said, "is that what they really wanted to do is go to someone in leadership in the church, a bishop or someone, and tell their story and share that pain and have it acknowledged. To be apologized to because sometimes what they got was stonewalling."
"The pope," Reese said, "is clearly not stonewalling these victims."
The vicar of Christ may at last have begun to do convincingly what so many of his bishops could not.
"With Cardinal [Bernard] Law, we never got any sense of him being contrite," said Pecklers, referring to the former archbishop of Boston, where the scandal broke open in 2002. Law was ultimately accused of covering up for many abusive priests, moving them from parish to parish.
"He finally apologized, but it was well after the fact, and it was never quite clear that Cardinal Law ever got it. It was a missed opportunity, really," said Pecklers.
Reese gives Pope Benedict high marks for leadership in this: "I think what he has done is what people wanted the pope to do: He realized it's what he needed to do and should do as a pastor."
Pecklers sees an unexpected new side of Benedict emerging from this meeting.
"A side which most people would not have expected to come from Joseph Ratzinger, who was known as 'the professor pope,'" said Pecklers. "It demonstrates a shepherd's heart, a pastoral side to this man, taking his role as a universal pastor seriously."
The unique papal meeting has church historians scrambling to find anything comparable.
It was, in a sense, a sort of new kind of confessional, the "sacrament of reconciliation," in which --- after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council -– penitents are meant to aim to reconcile themselves not only with God but also with humanity.
And this time the pope himself is the penitent as well as the empathetic listener.
Dramatic as this historic meeting was, it will take some time to assess its true meaning and impact.
But one psychologist was cautiously impressed.
"I would think it could go a long way to helping heal the trauma," said Daniel Hill, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City who for 30 years has dealt with trauma victims.
Pointing out the well-established psychic damage that can result from abuse by those to whom children normally go for protection and comfort, Hill sees a possible parallel.
"At the center of the trauma is a person [the priest] who presides in a place of safety and well-being, but who instead becomes a source of shame and fear," Hill said. "It is an insoluble problem, and a huge break of trust."
"So if someone higher up who's really in charge of [those priests] listens and is apologetic and says he feels ashamed, I would think it could go a long way to alleviate the trauma that resulted from the original breach of trust," said Hill, adding a caveat.
"This is, however, speculative," Hill said. "The meeting just happened. It will take some time before we can see whether it really helps. I hope it does."
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