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	Historic Visit Reminds U.S. of Open Wounds By Patrick Arden Metro April 18, 2008 http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Historic_visit_reminds_US_of_open_wounds/12274.html Pope Benedict XVI's trip to the U.S. has been shadowed by the clergy-sex-abuse scandals that have shaken the foundations of the American church. On Thursday, he met with victims from the Boston area, and at a mass for 46,000 in Washington, the 81-year-old pontiff expressed his sympathy, saying, "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse." But words alone won't make the problem go away. Soon after the pope lands at JFK Friday, a defrocked priest who molested a Pennsylvania teen will be sentenced to prison in Long Island. Following months of graphic online chat, Thomas Bender, 74, arranged a rendezvous with someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy, but who turned out to be a Nassau County cop. "Children need and Catholics deserve action, not sympathy," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the largest and oldest victims' group. "The pope must discipline bishops who know or suspect abuse and either stay silent or conceal it," Clohessy said. "We can all castigate molesters, but that won't stop them. They're sick, driven men — no threat will make them stop. But with top church officials facing serious consequences, there will be reform," he added. Clohessy addressed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, when it drafted a sexual abuse policy. "The pope needs to strengthen that policy and make it worldwide," he said. "It's naive to think this is just an American problem." Caught in the act Bender is no longer a priest. He was arrested in March 2006 when he arrived at a Levittown pizzeria intending to meet a boy, prosecutors said. He admitted that he was carrying condoms, beer, gay pornography, a digital camera, candy, gum, toothpaste, KY Jelly and a laptop computer.
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