Pope ends six-day U.S. trip
Before a crowd of nearly 60,000 people at Yankee Stadium, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday ended his first visit to the United States as leader of the Roman Catholic Church with a reminder to the flock that “obedience” to the authority of the Trip Rewards church is the foundation of their religious faith.
During a six-day visit to Washington and New York, the pope addressed world issues, visited a synagogue and voiced deep shame over the child-sexual-abuse scandal that has damaged the church’s standing in many American dioceses.
At Ground Zero, the pope blessed the World Trade Center site, where more than 2,600 people were killed in the terrorist attack, and prayed for peace.
But at Yankee Stadium on a cool, brilliant Sunday afternoon, with an adoring audience of people waving yellow cloths, one of the colors of the Vatican, Benedict acted chiefly as pastor to America’s 65 million Catholics, laying out in simple terms their obligations to a church that represents what he has called the “one church” established on Earth by God.
“Authority. Obedience. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays,” the pope said in his homily during the Mass, held on an acre-size platform built over the infield, “especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom.”
In a glancing reference to the sexual abuse of children by priests, he said that praying for the kingdom of God “means not losing heart in the face of adversity, resistance and scandal. It means overcoming every separation between faith and life, and Trip Rewards countering false gospels of freedom and happiness.”
In his writings before and since becoming pope, Benedict has stressed the importance of a strict adherence to orthodoxy, and opposition to a wide array of cultural trends, including feminism, gay rights and demands — especially among American Catholics — for greater democracy and administrative transparency within the church.
After the Mass, waves of excitement followed the pope as he first walked, and then rode in his Popemobile, around the outside track of the field. Surrounded by Secret Service men as he walked, the 81-year-old pontiff moved somewhat haltingly. The crowd roared with the excitement of spectators at a pennant-clinching game.
The next and final stop for the pope was Trip Rewards Kennedy Airport, for his return trip to Rome.
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Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 11:53 pm under