Pope leads Mass for 45,000 at Washington's Nationals Park

WASHINGTON

From their perch in an upper deck, well beyond the right field fence, Oscar and Teresa DeLostrinos of Virginia Beach felt tears welling up as Pope Benedict XVI preached of love, forgiveness and hope Thursday at Nationals Park.

When Benedict led them in prayer, Teresa, 70, held aloft handwritten petitions seeking blessings for her children and a sister. Oscar, 66, thought of the couple’s son, an Air Force captain serving in Iraq.

“I will tell my son that the pope blessed my prayers for your safety,” he said later, biting his lip as the tears almost came again.

“I can’t forget this day,” Teresa said. “It touched my heart.”

Recent years have been difficult for American Catholics, their church beset by sexual abuse scandals and divided on a range of issues including abortion, homosexuality, women in the priesthood, and capital punishment.

But on a sun-drenched spring day in a ballpark transformed into an open-air cathedral, the 265th bishop of Rome found a flock of more than 46,000 Catholics who seemed – if only for a moment – to put troubles and disagreements aside and truly celebrate their faith.

A throaty roar went up as Benedict’s popemobile emerged from behind the center field gate 30 minutes before the Mass, nearly drowning out the trumpets that heralded his arrival. As he circled the baseball stadium, waving to the throng from an open window, children were held aloft for a better view and thousands of tiny gold papal flags danced in the sunlight.

There were more cheers minutes later as a parade of red-robed cardinals led Benedict across the field to an altar crafted specially for the occasion and a simple greeting from Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl: “Holy Father, welcome to Washington.”

“I thank God for the blessing of being in your midst,” the pope said.

In his homily, Benedict urged America’s 65 million Catholics to “foster healing and reconciliation” in the wake of the scandals and disputes that have rocked the U.S. church.

He described Americans as “a people of hope ” who at times have fallen short in efforts to build a nation of freedom and opportunity. He cited, in particular, the treatment of “native American peoples” and “those brought here forcibly as slaves.”

“Let us acknowledge our failures and ask the Lord for pardon and strength,” Benedict prayed.

The pope’s message continued his efforts to confront the American church’s embarrassment at revelations of priests’ abuse of minors. Benedict raised the subject even before he arrived, when talking to reporters on his flight from Rome on Tuesday, and he took time after the Mass to meet and pray privately with a group of victims.

“No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse, …” he told worshipers at Nationals Park. “Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the church.”

Benedict said the church has made “great efforts” 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.”

The Mass at Nationals Park was one of two that Benedict will celebrate in public during his U.S. visit, which began Tuesday. The visit ends Sunday after a service in New York’s Yankee Stadium and a stop at ground zero.

The pope marked his 81st birthday on Wednesday with a call on President Bush at the White House – only the second papal visit there ever. He also was greeted by thousands of Americans who lined city streets to catch a glimpse of his motorcade as he returned to the Vatican Embassy after his meeting with the president.

Despite the warmth of the welcome and the pope’s popularity among American Catholics – three-fourths have a positive impression of Benedict, an ABC News-Washington Post poll reported last week – attendance at weekly Masses is down and much of the U.S. church is at odds with the Vatican.

The ABC-Post poll found that 62 percent of U.S. Catholics view Rome as out of sync with their beliefs, a 10 percentage point increase from the beginning of Benedict’s reign three years ago.

Americans differ with the pope on a wide range of issues, other studies indicate. A slim majority of American Catholics, for example, say abortion should be legal in most cases, a Pew Research Center study found last year. The same survey found that 60 percent of Catholics support capital punishment and 55 percent say it is more important to conduct potentially life-saving stem-cell research than to preserve the human embryos needed for that research.

Other polls have found substantial majorities of U.S. Catholics favor admitting women to the priesthood and that most Catholic women use birth-control medications or devices.

Benedict’s views on all those subjects would put him in the minority in the United States.

Washingtonians are accustomed to the tight security that accompanies visits by heads of state, but the bulletproof popemobile that carried Benedict into Nationals Park on Thursday was emblematic of the extra precautions that accompany the pontiff. The Secret Service took charge of his protection and some of the city’s busiest streets were closed to other traffic at the height of the rush hour Thursday as he traveled from the Vatican Embassy to the stadium.

At Nationals Park, the faithful had to pass through metal detectors before heading to their seats. There were long lines for subway rides to and from the stadium and for the security checks at the gates, but this didn’t spoil the mood among worshipers.

“I feel holy. I’m sprouting wings,” said Judy Broermann, who flew in from Ohio to attend the Mass with her daughter, Diane Hurney of Virginia Beach. Benedict reminded her “to be forgiving and not to be judgmental,” she said. It didn’t matter that she could barely see him, except on the stadium’s giant video screen.

“We loved his red shoes,” she laughed.

“It’s an honor to have been here,” said Francis Kammer, 22, a clerk in the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office. He would head home inspired that Benedict “hasn’t given up on America and the churches here,” he said.

“There are no words to describe the feeling I got,” added his sister, Catherine, 20, a student at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton.

The Kammers stuffed pockets and purses with crucifixes, rosaries and other items sent by friends and relatives for the pope’s blessing. “It was amazing,” Catherine said. Benedict’s message reminded her that “with God, you can get through anything.”

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com