Pope Francis After US Trip: Americans Are ‘So Lovable’

He also issued a warning to bishops that they would be held accountable should they fail to protect their flocks. Above the occasional screech of planes overhead, Pope Francis reflected on themes that characterized much of his trip: the importance of family, and the responsibility of the U.S.as stewards of opportunity.

After encouraging a group of prisoners to get their lives back on track, Pope Francis walked through the gym at Philadelphia’s largest jail and shook the hands of each of the men and women individually.

The Staabs were invited to be near Pope Francis during Friday’s Mass.

Pope Francis met with the abuse survivors for close to a half-hour between 8-9a.m. before meeting with bishops gathered in Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families.

Fr. Lombardi added: “The Pope thanked the victims for their essential contribution to restore the truth and begin the journey of healing”. In Philadelphia, he gave a speech at Independence Hall from a lectern used by Lincoln when he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

“You know how walls finish up”, Francis said.

Francis’ words regarding the clerical sexual abuse crisis have been the most criticized of his six-day visit to the United States, as a few perceived the pontiff as siding more with the American hierarchy than the victims.

“I met a woman who told me, ‘When my mother found out that I had been abused, she became blasphemous, she lost her faith and she died an atheist, ‘” the pope said.

“But, when a priest abuses it is very serious because the vocation of the priest is to make that boy, that girl grow toward the love of God, toward maturity and toward good”, he said.

The visit involved political and pastoral aspects.

Pope Francis’ history-making trip to the United States is still being talked about days after his departure. What was your favorite part of the pope’s visit to the United States?

“It is a fundamental right which shapes the way we interact socially and personally with our neighbors whose religious views differ from our own”, the pope said.

And this user was just concerned: “I would of felt so unbelievably uncomfortable someone grabbing my baby and walking away to show someone”.

Philadelphia was one of the American Catholic archdiocese hardest-hit by the sex abuse revelations of the last two decades.

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He said the nuns have “done marvels in the field of education, in the field of health” and that one high-level US official told him, “The education I have, I owe above all to the sisters”. The Mass could be heard halfway across the downtown and people stood in absolute attention, as they saw the Pope speak on the big screens and heard his wonderful homily about family, hope, and love.