POPE BENEDICT XVI celebrated Mass for 46,000 people at a Washington baseball stadium, confronting directly the clerical child abuse scandal that has rocked the American Catholic Church and acknowledging racial injustice in the United States, writes Denis Staunton, Washington Correspondent.
The Mass was held in warm sunshine and an atmosphere of ebullient festivity. Four choirs sang, Placido Domingo performed Panis Angelicus, and more than 300 priests and deacons distributed Holy Communion to the massive crowd within an astonishing 20 minutes.
The pope's message was sombre, however, with his first words aimed directly at the American faithful about a scandal that has seen thousands of priests accused of sexual misconduct with children and cost the church more than $2 billion in compensation.
"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," he said. "Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the church. Great efforts have already been made to deal honestly and fairly with this tragic situation, and to ensure that children - whom our Lord loves so deeply and who are our greatest treasure - can grow up in a safe environment. These efforts must continue."
The pope said Catholics should seek to heal the wounds, calling on the optimism that is the hallmark of their country's spirit. He said Americans had always been a people of hope, with immigrants coming to the country hoping for freedom and opportunity.
"To be sure, this promise was not experienced by all the inhabitants of this land; one thinks the injustice endured by the native American peoples and those brought here forcibly from Africa as slaves," he said.
Earlier, the pope told bishops that the sex abuse scandal was a cause of "deep shame" but he urged them to confront what he described as other forms of abuse, including the over-sexualisation of America. He said that the church in the US was at a crossroads.
"It is a time of great promise, as we see the human family in many ways drawing closer together and becoming ever more interdependent," he said. "Yet at the same time we see clear signs of a disturbing breakdown in the very foundations of society: signs of alienation, anger and polarisation on the part of many of our contemporaries; increased violence; a weakening of the moral sense; a coarsening of social relations; and a growing forgetfulness of God."
The pontiff travels to New York today, where he will address the General Assembly of the United Nations. Tomorrow he will celebrate Mass for thousands of priests at St Patrick's Cathedral before a visit to Ground Zero and a second open-air Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.