But Clergy-Abuse Protesters Hound Pontiff
By Jessica Fargen
Boston Herald
April 19, 2008
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1088178&srvc=rss
NEW YORK CITY - Making history with every stop, Pope Benedict XVI preached peace at the United Nations and healing at a city synagogue, all while thousands of pilgrims danced and chanted "Beneditto" in the streets of the Big Apple.
Through it all yesterday, the 81-year-old pontiff worked the marbled halls and sacred rooms with the pomp only a sitting pope can command.
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| Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the United States. Photo by AP |
"Your visit today to Park East Synagogue, a historic occasion that will be recorded in history forever, is a reaffirmation of your . . . good will," said Rabbi Arthur Schneier during the Holy Father's visit.
"Dear friends, Shalom!" the pope said at the synagogue. "It is with joy that I come here."
It was a short, yet historic moment from a religious giant once a reluctant member of the Hitler Youth.
At the United Nations, the pope insisted that human rights - not force or politics - must overpower war and poverty as the global economy reaches all corners of the earth.
"Each state has the overarching duty to protect its population against serious and repeated violations of human rights as well as consequences of humanitarian crisis due to natural causes or resulting from man's activities," the pontiff said.
He stressed conflict resolution as a means to peace in his address to the U.N. General Assembly.
Outside the United Nations, hundreds of people waited in the bright sunshine for hours to catch a glimpse of the papal motorcade, some dancing, singing and playing drums and guitars as they stood along First Avenue. Street venders sold $5 Benedict signs, 8-inch-by-10-inch photos of the German pontiff, flags and pins from shopping carts. Some sold T-shirts by the armful.
But Benedict, with two full days left on his six-day visit to America, remains under siege by clergy sex abuse demonstrators lining the streets outside every papel event.
Benedict, who made history on Thursday when he met with Boston clergy abuse victims in Washington, D.C., could not shake clergy abuse victims and their supporters, who followed him to Washington, D.C., and protested outside St. Patrick's Cathedral just minutes after he departed the United Nations.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests held a protest outside the cathedral, where this morning Benedict is expected to say the first papal Mass ever inside the historic church. SNAP members held black-and-white photos of priest abuse victims, many of them from Massachusetts and New York.
"We need to protect the next generation of children," said Paul Kellen, a member of SNAP who lives in Medford and held a photo of Patrick McSorley, a Boston abuse victim who died of a heroin overdose.
Steve Sheehan, 74, of Brighton said he hopes Thursday's historic meeting with clergy abuse victims will have lasting effects.
"I'm glad that happened," he said while standing on 50th Street, adding "What I'm afraid of is that might be the end of it."
SNAP plans to hand out fliers at subway stops near St. Patrick's Cathedral today and outside Yankee Stadium during the Holy Father's Mass tomorrow.
The pope is expected to address the sex abuse scandal again at tomorrow's Sunday Mass.
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