By CHRIS GRAEME chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the Catholic Church’s responsibility for a string of child sex abuse scandals stretching back decades.
Speaking on the papal flight en-route to Lisbon from Rome, the Supreme Pontiff told reporters that the threat to Catholicism came from the “sin within the Church” and not without.
Stating that “forgiveness” did not “replace justice”, he said: “Today we see, in a truly terrifying way, that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church itself.”
The Pope arrived in Lisbon shortly before 11am on Tuesday and was met at the airport by the President of the Republic Cavaco Silva, First Lady Maria Cavaco Silva and Prime Minister José Sócrates.
Travelling in the Pope Mobile, Pope Benedict smiled and waved at the cheering crowds of onlookers and faithful lining the route behind tight police cordons from Portela Airport to Lisbon to greet him on his first visit as Pope to Portugal.
He was officially met outside Jerónimos Monastery by President Cavaco Silva and Cardinal José Policarpo, where he was welcomed with a 21-gun salvo salute and cheers of “Long Live the Pope!” before going inside to pray.
Pope Benedict was taken to the Palácio de Belém, the official residence of the President of the Republic, where he signed the Book of Honour, in which he wrote: “Portugal, a country rich in humanity and Christianity” and gave his “blessing” in the 100th anniversary of the Portuguese Republic.
In the late afternoon, Pope Benedict held an open air mass for an estimated 100,000 people in Lisbon’s Terreiro do Paço Square where he told the crowd that “nothing could destroy the Catholic Church.”
“The resurrection of Christ assures us that no adverse power will ever be able to destroy the Catholic Church,” the Pope said during his speech which was heard by the President Cavaco Silva, the Prime Minister, members of the government, Lisbon Mayor António Costa and Dom Duarte, the Duke of Braganza.
Shortly before the mass, he received the keys to the City of Lisbon from the Mayor.
The Pope also said that he wanted “Christians to be more involved and apparent within the family, cultural, economic and political” life of the country and “less concerned about outward ecclesiastical forms and trappings. Instead, he called upon Christians to “recognise Christ through the poor”.
During this papal visit, the emphasis has very much been on the role of youth in Christianity and the Catholic Church.
On Wednesday, after the Algarve Resident went to press, the Pontiff was due to celebrate Mass at Portugal’s most important Catholic shrine of Fátima to celebrate the anniversary of the Miracle of the Apparition of the Virgin Mary before three shepherds in 1917. He was then due to travel on to Porto in the evening for a mass in that city on Thursday.
