Reuters: Pope: U.S. church needs purificiation 19 April

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday berated US bishops for their poor handling of the child sex scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church, but laid part of the blame on the breakdown of values in US society. Benedict told a gathering of bishops they had "sometimes very badly handled" the decades-old problem of pedophile priests. But he urged efforts "to address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores.

Pope Benedict XVI is expected to address the issue of pedophile priests during his first visit to the United States. The Catholic Church in the United States has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation because of the scandal and more lawsuits are pending. AFPTV profiles a victim of sexual abuse by a priest.

Campaigners against sexual abuse in the Catholic church have cautiously welcomed Pope Benedict XVI's comments that he intends to express regrets to the victims of abuse during his visit to Australia. (July 13)

Pope Benedict XVI went out of his way to use a historic six-day visit to the United States to try to heal the wounds left by the sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic priests. An AFPTV report.

Pope Benedict XVI urged US Catholics to renew their faith and condemned the "tragic" sexual abuse of children by priests as he celebrated Mass before tens of thousands at a baseball stadium in the US capital on Thursday. Images and soundbite.

The Pontiff made his call on the last day of a trip to Austria during a Mass in Vienna's majestic St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Some 13,500 people packed the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday to welcome Pope Benedict XVI. President George W. Bush welcomed the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics on his historic visit to the United States and said America and the world need his "message of hope." Images and soundbites.

Pope Benedict XVI has raised expectations he will apologize directly to victims of clergy sexual abuse during a visit to Australia this week for a Roman Catholic gathering of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. (July 14)

It was the first meeting between a Pope and a Saudi monarch, custodian of two of Islam's holiest shrines. The Vatican wants greater rights for the some 1 million Catholics who live in the Saudi Arabia, most of them migrant workers who are not allowed to practice their religion in public. At the end of the meeting, the king gave the Pope a gold and silver sword studded with precious jewels, in keeping with a bedouin custom the Saudis follow when foreign leaders visit their country. The king also presented Benedict with a small silver and gold statue depicting a palm tree and a man riding a camel.

The Catholic Church celebrates January 1 as its World Day of Peace, and the Pope used a mid-morning mass and a window appearance before thousands of faithful in St. Peter's Square to mark the occasion. He also called on families to live in harmony and fraternal solidarity.