Monday, July 21, 2008

Hundreds of thousands gather for pope's youth finale

Pope Benedict XVI led up to 500,000 pilgrims in a giant mass on a Sydney racecourse Sunday, capping a week of World Youth Day festivities marked by a historic papal apology for priestly sex abuse.

The final service, at which the pope was also to announce the 2011 World Youth Day host city, came a day after he said he was "deeply sorry" for the "evil" of the sexual abuse of children.

Royal Randwick Racecourse, usually the cathedral of Australia's massive horse racing industry, was transformed into a sea of cheering and flag-waving Catholic devotees from around the world as the pontiff took to a special stage.

Organisers had predicted that the more than 200,000 pilgrims in Sydney for the festival would be joined by hundreds of thousands of other worshippers, taking the crowd at the mass to 500,000.

"It's really the opportunity for us to build up our faith more deeply, especially for my children," said Corry Setio, an Indonesian-born Australian who turned up to see the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics say mass.

Before the service, the 81-year-old pope, in his traditional white robes with a red cape over his shoulders, took to the skies in a helicopter to get a bird's-eye view of the sea of pilgrims gathered to see him.

He then did a slow circuit of the racecourse in his iconic "popemobile," smiling and waving to the crowds as some mothers thrust babies up to the vehicle's large windows in the hope their children might feel the papal aura.

During the service, traditional Fijian dancers and singers performed for the pope, pilgrims and a battery of robed bishops and cardinals from around the world who attended the mass.

The pontiff arrived in Australia a week ago to preside over the biggest Christian gathering on earth that has seen Sydney's easy-going pace replaced by an atmosphere that combines football match fever with rock concert festiveness and religious fervour.

"It's a bit surreal that it's all coming to an end," Canadian pilgrim Alicia Desa, 18, told AFP after camping out in chilly weather overnight with around 235,000 other pilgrims ahead of the pope's final mass

"We've been here a week and it's been great," she said of the liturgies, masses and an extraordinary recreation of the last days of the life of Jesus Christ on the shores of Sydney's famed harbour.

"It's kind of sad that it's all over but people are looking forward to the next one," Desa said.

The pope was expected to cap off the week by revealing the venue of the next World Youth Day in three years. The Spanish capital Madrid is believed to be vying for the honour against two Brazilian cities, including Rio de Janeiro.

World Youth Day was launched in 1986 by the late pope John Paul II in a bid to help the stem the flow of young Catholics away from the once-dominant church in an age of growing secularism in the western world.

Organisers said Sydney's final mass was one of the biggest events ever held in Australia, where 5.5 million people, or 27.5 percent of its population, are Catholic, briefly turning a racecourse and adjacent park into its 10th largest city.

But World Youth Day has been partly overshadowed by a scandal over the sexual abuse of children by some Catholic clergy that had rocked the global church for years.

Amid public pressure from Australian victims, the pope on Saturday apologised publicly and fully for abuse in the Australian church and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

During a mass for local clergy, he strayed from a prepared speech to express his shame and make his first direct and explicit apology to victims of some corrupt clergymen in Australia.

"I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering," he said.

"Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious (order members) in this country," Benedict said.

But some activists dismissed the pontiff's apology before a group of bishops, seminarians and novices in Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral, saying words were not enough and that he should have apologised in front of sex abuse victims.

"Sorry may be a start but we want to see a lot more," said Chris MacIsaac, spokeswoman for the victims' group Broken Rites, adding that she wanted victims to be treated fairly and not to be "re-abused by church authorities."

In a visit to the United States in April, the pope spoke of the shame and suffering that abusive priests had brought upon the church, but stopped short of a direct apology.
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