Pope Ends U.S. Trip With Airport Farewell From Vice President

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Pope Benedict XVI's Historic Visit to New York

In his first trip to New York, Pope Benedict XVI expressed shame for the child abuse scandal and encouraged young Catholics to be active in the Church.

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Benedict acknowledged the obvious challenge of this message in a religiously diverse democracy, noting that "linguistic and cultural tensions [were] already present within the earliest Church community." However, he said, "all external structures, associations and programs, valuable or even essential as they may be, ultimately exist only to support and foster the deeper unity which, in Christ, is God's indefectible gift to his church."

It was at least the seventh papal Mass conducted in the New York area in recent decades. And compared with Thursday's tidy, more reserved Mass in Washington, held in a sparkling new stadium where church choirs and people remained largely seated, Yankee Stadium offered a more earthy setting, with the smell of sausage wafting through the old Bronx ball park.

Pop stars including Harry Connick Jr. and Stephanie Mills entertained the crowd in the hours before Benedict took the altar. Between his prayers, the audience whooped and clapped, though they interrupted the pope's homily just once -- when he spoke out against abortion.

Katherine Kiriakos, 15, of Yonkers, was texting a friend from a hallway just as priests and deacons began to distribute communion. "The pope is adorable," the 10th-grader said, having just texted the same thing. "I like the way he explained the Gospel."

Sunday's Mass sounded like a sporting event when New York Archbishop Cardinal Edward Egan acknowledged the U.S. dioceses celebrating their bicentennials: Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Louisville. As he listed each city, sections of the stadium stood and cheered. The Vatican has said Benedict's trip was timed for the bicentennials as well as for his speech Friday at the United Nations.

Benedict is known as a shy theologian, and experts predicted his homilies would leave many Americans unengaged. But his trip drew huge crowds, from Fifth Avenue in New York to Nationals Park in Washington. He brought unprecedented focus to the issue of clergy sex abuse and met with several victims, believed to be a first for a pope. He called the abuse of minors by U.S. clergy "evil" and "immoral" and said he was "deeply ashamed" of the scandal.

He also had several meetings with representatives of other faiths, including Muslims and Jews. Both groups have bridled at the pontiff's words and actions. It is, however, an open question whether the visit will ease tensions in any of those areas.

"I'm not thinking about any of the problems in the church right now," said Aldo Bencetti, 43, of Newark, who came to Yankee Stadium with his family. "I'm just enjoying going to Mass with the pope."