President Bush and an enthusiastic crowd of adoring followers greeted Pope Benedict XVI at Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday, launching the second papal visit to the nation’s capital in the Catholic Church’s history.
It was the first time that Bush has welcomed a dignitary on arriving at Andrews.
After shaking hands with the president, first lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna, the pope waved to the hundreds who greeted him with a rock-star-like reception, screaming and waving Vatican and American flags.
The pope and the president left in a motorcade a few minutes later.
During his flight from Rome to Washington, the pope said he was “deeply ashamed” of the sexual abuse scandal that has recently rocked the Catholic Church and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement fees. It is one of the issues that Benedict will discuss during his three-day visit to Washington.
Although Benedict has addressed the sexual abuse scandal in the past, it was important that he directly confront the issue during his U.S. visit, said Father Mitchell Pacwa, television host for the EWTN Global Catholic Network.
“We’re Americans. One of the things about the United States of America, we like straight-up talk,” Pacwa told The Examiner. “This was a way for him to say, ‘How do we go ahead and try to help heal this painful situation?’ ”
Benedict, speaking in English on the plane, pledged that the Catholic Church would keep pedophiles from becoming priests.
“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.”
Benedict pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Catholic Church.
“We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry,” Benedict said. “It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”
The pope also said he would talk to President Bush today about immigration and the effect it has on families.
“The issue of immigration is much more oriented towards the concern for the people involved rather than winning or losing an issue,” Pacwa said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
