Sydney - Pope Benedict XVI received a warm welcome Saturday from up to 200,000 pilgrims readying for a cold overnight vigil at a Sydney racecourse. The pilgrims are in Australia's biggest city for a week-long youth festival that climaxes Sunday with a papal mass.
"God has made us for one another and only through god and his church can we find the unity we seek," the 81-year-old pontiff told a flock drawn from more than 170 countries. "In the end, life is not about accumulation. It's much more than success."
Benedict was assured a rousing reception after a candid response earlier in the day to calls that he speak out against priests who sexually abuse those in their care.
He spoke to a gathering of bishops of "the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse" and the requirement that perpetrators be punished.
"These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation," the pope said. "They have caused great pain. They have damaged the church's witness."
The public remorse was welcomed by John Hennessey, a spokesman for Australian victims of abuse and their families.
"He didn't have to use the words shame and betrayal and he used the words compassion and care," Hennessy said. "I sincerely congratulate His Holiness for being brave enough to show leadership to the world that he's not going to put up with this any more."
Others were less impressed - and less forgiving of the church.
Helen Last, spokeswoman for lobby group In Good Faith and Associates, dismissed the pope's apology as inadequate.
"It's just a drop in a bucket - a bucket full of tears that all of us who work with victims have been sitting with for 25 to 30 years in Australia," Last told Australian news agency AAP.
From first light, pilgrims trooped the 9-kilometre route from one side of the harbour to the other and on to the racecourse. For only the third time in its 76-year history, Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed to vehicles for the day for marchers from 170 countries who carried sleeping bags for their night under the stars.
Among those toiling on the three-hour slog was 22-year-old Hong Kong resident Peter Mok, who waved the Chinese national flag and laboured under a backpack almost the same size as himself.
"The highlight so far was the education expo because I want to go to a Catholic university in Australia," Mok said. "The other best thing was a Holy Trinity T-shirt I got that is green."
The mass closes a World Youth Day that opened in style on Thursday with the German-born pontiff sailing down the harbour to a former cargo wharf to be greeted by gleeful members of his billion-strong flock.
They passed protesters calling attention to the church's teachings against homosexuality, against priests marrying, against contraception and against women gaining equal rights and joining the clergy.
In the only recorded violent confrontation, a 19-year-old Australian was arrested but eventually released without charge after he lunged through a police cordon to wallop a fellow local demonstrating against the church's teachings against homosexuality and proffering condoms to the pilgrims.
World Youth Day, held somewhere in the world every three years, has drawn 125,000 foreign pilgrims and a local contingent of around 75,000.
Melbourne schoolgirl Vanessa Potts, 16, was on the road early to reserve a spot as close to the pope as possible. She said that Catholics in avowedly secular Australia were often teased about their religious observance, but the camaraderie of the jamboree had been exhilarating.
"You feel stronger in your faith, not ashamed of it or anything," Potts said. "I think the best thing was when the pope was in his boat and it sailed under the Harbour Bridge and we could see it and they all went mad."
Sydney residents who had moaned about the taxpayer funding and the traffic disruption have been won over by the untrammeled joy of the youngsters. "It's every bit and more than we dreamed of," said chief organizer Danny Casey. "The pilgrims, they think they are in paradise."
