Critics Say First U.S. Visit Should Include Boston
By Mike Underwood
Boston Herald
April 9, 2008
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1085952&srvc=home&position=also
Critics of the Catholic Church welcomed Pope Benedict XVI's decision to address the child sex abuse scandal during his first U.S. trip - but said he should be making the historic speech in Boston.
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| Pope Benedict XVI |
"By not including Boston on his trip, Pope Benedict may give the appearance of trying to avoid the sexual abuse scandal," said Dan Bartley, president of Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based lay group that formed in the wake of the abuse scandal that rocked the city in 2000.
"Avoiding the scandal will not fix the many challenges facing our church today," Bartley said.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said Benedict will deliver a message of "trust and hope" when he visits New York and Washington next week.
Bartley said he also hopes Benedict will propose "concrete steps" to target the culture of secrecy and the exclusion of the laity in church decision-making, which he believes helped fuel the sex abuse.
"If parents were involved in the decision whether or not to transfer abusive priests, it never would have happened," Bartley said.
Benedict's first trip to America as pontiff begins April 16 in Washington, where he will meet with President Bush and conduct Mass at Nationals Park.
The pope, who turns 81 during his historic visit, is then slated to move on to New York City, where he will address the United Nations and hold Mass at Yankee Stadium before heading home.
Bertone said Benedict is physically fit but could not meet all the invitations from U.S. cities and had to limit himself to Washington and New York.
It is not known when the pontiff will address the scandal that sent shockwaves through the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and forced the archbishop of Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law, to resign in 2002.
No one from the Archdiocese of Boston returned calls for comment last night.
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