PHILADELPHIA — Pope Francis led hundreds of thousands of the faithful Sunday at the last and biggest event of his joyful, six-day U.S. visit — a Mass on Philadelphia’s grandest boulevard — after consoling victims of the church sex abuse scandal and offering words of hope to jail inmates.
Francis told listeners that their presence was “a kind of miracle in today’s world,” an affirmation of the family and power of love.
“Would that all of us could be open to miracles of love for the sake of all the families of the world,” he said.
The Mass was a vibrant tableau of brilliant gold, green and white in the slanted evening sunlight of a mild early-autumn day. It was the final event on Francis’ itinerary before the 78-year-old pontiff was to return to Rome.
Organizers predicted a crowd of 1 million, though there were fears that the unprecedented security, including airport-style bag searches, crowd-control cattle chutes and blocked-off streets, had scared many people away and would depress the turnout.
Earlier in the day, in a gesture of reconciliation, he met with victims of child sexual abuse and told them he is “deeply sorry” for the times they came forward to tell their story and weren’t believed. He assured them that he believes them and that bishops will be called to account for shielding child-molesting priests.
“I pledge to you that we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead,” Francis said in Spanish. “Clergy and bishops will be held accountable when they abuse or fail to protect children.”
Then, he went into a meeting with American bishops in town for a Catholic Festival of Families and told them the same thing face-to-face. “God weeps” over what was done to the youngsters, he lamented.
Also Sunday, Francis visited a Philadelphia jail to give hope of redemption to about 100 inmates, included suspected killers, rapists and mobsters. He greeted the men one by one, telling them to use their time behind bars to get their lives back on track.
“May you make possible new opportunities, new journeys, new paths,” he said, standing before a wooden chair the men had made for the occasion.
The blue-uniformed inmates, some of them heavily tattooed, seemed moved. They clasped Francis’ hands, and two hugged him.
Francis’ U.S. journey also took him to Washington and New York. Along the way, he drew large and adoring crowds, met with President Barack Obama, visited ground zero and an East Harlem school, and addressed Congress and the United Nations, calling for urgent action on climate change and poverty.
The meeting on Sunday with victims of sexual abuse was the second one Francis has held.
But in an apparent effort by the church to reshape the discussion, the Vatican said not all five of the victims on Sunday were abused by members of the clergy; some of the three women and two men had been victimized by relatives or educators.
The choice of victims underscored the Vatican’s argument that child molestation is not unique to the church and happens also in schools and within families.
Victim support groups were unimpressed by the meeting, which took place at a seminary on the edge of Philadelphia and lasted more than a half hour.
The main victims’ support group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, dismissed it as an exercise in public relations.
“Is a child anywhere on Earth safer now that a pope, for maybe the seventh or eighth time or ninth time, has briefly chatted with abuse victims? No,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy.
The Rev. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer who worked at the Vatican embassy in Washington and is now an advocate for victims, said that including more than just victims of abusive clergy “seriously minimizes” the problem in the church.
“We don’t think we’re going to get any real support to change this from the leadership in the Vatican,” Doyle said.
