(Updated 8:53 p.m.)

Pope Benedict arrives in United States

By Kimberley Heatherington and John Norton

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. — About 10 minutes ahead of schedule, Pope Benedict XVI touched down at an Air Force base outside Washington, D.C., this afternoon at the beginning of his first pastoral visit to the United States, hours after urging healing for a Church suffering from the aftereffects of the clerical sex abuse crisis.

During a press conference aboard the plane, he said he and the entire Church was “deeply ashamed” about the abuse scandal.

After it landed, the Alitalia Boeing 777 jet carrying the pope, dubbed “Shepherd One,” taxied along the runway flying an American and a Vatican flag from the cockpit windows, and stopped before the airport building where the red carpet and a military guard awaited him, along with the swelling roar of a cheering and applauding crowd of more than 1,000 guests and the gazes of a slightly more subdued roster of state and Church dignitaries.

The pope smiled broadly and waved as he descended the aircraft in bright spring sunshine. He had to grab his white zucchetto to keep it from flying off his head in the stiff warm breeze.

The pope was met at the bottom of the stairs by a beaming President George W. Bush, who warmly shook his hand and introduced his wife, Laura, and daughter Jenna.

Others greeting the pope included Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference; other conference administrators; Mary Ann Glendon, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See; Washington’s Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl; and Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the military services archdiocese. (Keep reading)

Pope Benedict and President Bush, who made no statements and were due to meet again the following day, entered the airport building for about 10 minutes of private talks. When they reemerged, the president ushered the pope to a black, bullet-proof limousine for his motorcade ride to the residence of the pope’s U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Pietro Sambi.

During his six-day trip, the pope is to visit Washington, D.C., and New York, celebrate two stadium-style Masses for tens of thousands of people, address the United Nations’ general assembly and hold half a dozen meetings with groups, including the U.S. bishops, presidents of Catholic universities, and interreligious and ecumenical leaders.
While still over the Atlantic Ocean, the pope held a brief press conference during which he responded to a pre-submitted question on the clerical abuse crisis. He said healing the wound of the scandal was critical.

“We hope that we can do and have done and will do in the future all that is possible to heal this wound,” the pope said.

"Really, 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," he said.

"If I read the histories of these victims, it's difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give the love of God to these children," Pope Benedict said. Before being elected pope, he served as head of the Vatican office that reviewed the worst accusations of clerical sex abuse.

"We are deeply ashamed and will do all possible that this cannot happen in the future," the pope said.

Some measures being taken include improved screening of seminary candidates, he said. "It's more important to have good priests than to have many priests," he said.

"I will not speak in this moment about homosexuality but about pedophilia, which is another thing. We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. This is absolutely incompatible," he said.

The pope said he knew the whole U.S. Church would do “what is necessary to help, to assist and to heal, and to see that in the future these things cannot happen.”

Excitement buzzed throughout the crowd prior to the pontiff’s arrival.

“Just to have him near us — it’s a wonderful honor,“ said Airman Scott Garcia, who was accompanied by his wife, Airman Melissa Garcia. “It will just make it feel real,“ she enthused. “We see him on the TV and we hear about him in the news, but actually seeing him this close — we’re in the front row and we’re going to see the pope. It’s just amazing.” The Garcias, both Catholic, had high hopes for the success of the papal visit, with Melissa predicting that “having the pope here, in person, on our soil is going to make people stand back and say, ’He really does care about his people.’”

“Just getting to see the pope makes such a big difference,” said 1st Lt. Jill Hopkins, an Air Force intelligence officer and lifelong Catholic. “It kind of reinvigorates your faith. It reminds you, here’s this one person who is so dedicated to the living the life of God. It’s inspiring for me.”

Staff Sgt. Jonathan McGrath was gathered with his wife, Lori, and their three children, Angelina, age 3, Nicholas, 2, and Eva, four months. Sgt. McGrath — a convert to Catholicism whose military specialty is survival tactics — saw a message about religious freedom in the arrival of the pope at Andrews Air Force base. “For me, as a military member, it’s really important that we can have the pope — a church entity — come here to a state base.”

“Is the pope coming?” a curious Nicholas asked, as his mother assured him that the pope would indeed soon arrive. Nicholas clutched miniature Vatican and American flags, hundreds of which had been distributed throughout the crowd. Lori joked that, while the multisyllabic name of “Benedict” is somewhat difficult for her children to pronounce, they have nonetheless been repeatedly saying, “Pope! Pope!” in the days leading up to the papal visit.

The theme of the pope’s apostolic visit — “Christ Our Hope” — resonated with many of the onlookers. “I think the complex world we live in … a lot of times we forget that the message of the greatest teacher who ever existed was simplicity,” said Mike Nannery, a civilian Air Force contractor. “My hope is that I can kind of focus on that simplicity, and try to get away from the complexities of what we deal with every day.”

For Steve Massena, a Catholic civilian information technology contractor for the Air Force who is originally from Haiti, the papal visit is intensely personal. “It has a special meaning for me today because, about three days ago, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer,” Massena related. “So, she’s actually in the hospital right now. When I told her that I was coming here to see the pope, she was so excited…. She’s hoping that I’ll be able to actually see the pope, and ask the pope to pray for her. I don’t know how close I’ll be able to get to him to be able to actually ask him that, but that would be the ultimate for me — to be able to ask him to pray for my mother.”

While security restrictions made such individual encounters impossible, Pope Benedict’s earlier videotaped message sent assurances that, during his visit, he would feel a special solidarity with the sick, the poor and the marginalized.

More than 100 students from Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Md., were crowded into the bleachers next to the media. The school’s band had earlier entertained the crowd, and before the pope’s arrival, Archbishop Wuerl urged the students, “Don’t forget — when he gets off that plane, he has to hear us!” The students didn’t disappoint, shouting their enthusiastic welcome once the pontiff appeared at the top of the jet way.

Band member Vincent Harrington, a 16-year-old junior at Bishop McNamara High School, told Our Sunday Visitor that he and his classmates were eager to demonstrate to the pope that he has the support of American Catholic youths. “Coming out and showing the pope that youths are behind him 100 percent is very important to me,” Harrington said.

The pope’s age — the pontiff will celebrate his 81st birthday on Wednesday — does not, Harrington felt, represent a generational barrier. “His age, all that does is bring about wisdom,” Harrington declared. “I’m just praying to God that my ears will be open, as well as my heart.”

“Being here to see this, it’s a once in a lifetime chance,” said Christopher Burke, 17, a senior and Harrington’s fellow band member. “Because you never know when the pope’s is going to come back — if he’s going to come back — during our lifetime.”

After a brief meeting with the presidential entourage and church officials in a building near the tarmac, Pope Benedict emerged once again to cheering and shouts of “Viva Il Papa!” while the military families to his left serenaded him with a refrain of “Happy Birthday.”

After witnessing Pope Benedict’s arrival, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “I think there’s a tremendous excitement among so many in the country about the pope’s visit, and I’m hopeful that his visit will be an inspiration to many people to work for justice and peace — which is certainly an important part of the Church’s message — and that we will really make greater efforts to make all people welcome, and to try to assist especially the littlelest and weakest among us.“ Asked what words he had shared with the pope, Bishop Kicanas said that “I just said how pleased we were to have him here in the United States, and we hope his visit would be very blessed.”

Alitalia Capt. Alvaro Perneiconi, who piloted the papal jet, said the trip to the United States — his second voyage with Pope Benedict XVI, whom he also accompanied to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2007, and called a “beautiful man” — was “a wonderful flight — very, very smooth.”

President Bush’s greeting of Pope Benedict at the airport was the first time in his nearly eight-year presidency that he met a foreign leader at the airport.

In an interview with EWTN’s “The World Over” host Raymond Arroyo that was broadcast the previous week, Bush explained the reason he did so: “Because [Pope Benedict XVI] is a really important figure in a lot of ways,” he said. “One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith. And, three,” Bush concluded, “that I so subscribe to his notion that there are — there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies, and I want to honor his convictions, as well.”

President Bush first met Benedict XVI at the Vatican June 2007, discussing prospects for Mideast peace, the Iraq War and African relief. For First Lady Barbara Bush, Wednesday afternoon’s papal arrival was her third occasion to greet Pope Benedict, following two Vatican visits, in February 2006 and June 2007.

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