Benedict draws on personal history

To N.Y. crowds, cites Nazi era, calls for unity

Bishops in miters were among the 3,000 people, mostly members of the Roman Catholic clergy, at yesterday's Mass said by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. (DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

YONKERS, N.Y. - Pope Benedict XVI, nearing the end of his six-day trip to the United States, opened a rare window yesterday evening into his own struggles as a child in Nazi Germany, telling a large rally of seminarians and young Catholics that his difficulties in that era helped him understand the challenges that young people face.

On his penultimate day in the United States, Benedict turned from external audiences - the UN, the Jewish community, and non-Catholic Christians - back to the heart of his own church's leadership: priests, nuns, and seminarians. And the reception was enthusiastic, even if the themes were at times dark.

On Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Catholics lined up for as long as eight hours behind metal barricades, holding cameras, children, and yellow-and-white Vatican flags, chanting the pope's name in Italian, Benedetto, as they waited for a glimpse of him passing by.

On the grounds of a seminary in Yonkers, a papal rally resembled a rock concert. Twenty-five thousand youths were packed in elbow-to-elbow on a sun-splashed field by the St. Joseph Seminary, splayed out on towels and beach blankets, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages such as "JC Rules" and "Christ Our Hope" and screaming when they saw an image of the pope on a Jumbotron.

Even inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, with a congregation of 3,000 made up almost entirely of clergy and nuns, the presence of a pope caused a giddy stir.

"The minute the Holy Father walked into the cathedral, you began to shiver," said the Rev. Arthur Coyle, a church official from Boston who came down to New York to see the pope. "The applause. The yelling. The reception was unreal, and that was the spirit."

The day marked the first time this trip that Benedict has referred to his own upbringing in Nazi Germany. Born Joseph Ratzinger in 1927, Benedict was just 6 years old when the Nazis came to power. After seminary, he was required to join the Hitler Youth; he then was drafted into a German antiaircraft corps.

"My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers," he told the seminarians and young people outside St. Joseph's Seminary, in the Dunwoodie section of Yonkers. "Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognized for the monster it was. It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good. Many of your grandparents and great-grandparents will have recounted the horror of the destruction that ensued. Indeed, some of them came to America precisely to escape such terror."

His two major speeches - the homily at the morning Mass for clergy and nuns, and an address to the seminarians and young people gathered on the seminary grounds - were filled with references to other scourges, from drug abuse to moral relativism to clergy sexual abuse, a topic Benedict has mentioned four out of five days in the United States.

"For all of us, I think, one of the great disappointments which followed the Second Vatican Council, with its call for a greater engagement in the church's mission to the world, has been the experience of division between different groups, different generations, different members of the same religious family," he said at St. Patrick's. "We can only move forward if we turn our gaze together to Christ."

And outside the seminary, Benedict listed a variety of challenges facing young people today.

"The dreams and longings that young people pursue can so easily be shattered or destroyed," he said.

"I am thinking of those affected by drug and substance abuse, homelessness and poverty, racism, violence, and degradation - especially of girls and women. While the causes of these problems are complex, all have in common a poisoned attitude of mind which results in people being treated as mere objects. A callousness of heart takes hold which first ignores, then ridicules, the God-given dignity of every human being."

But Benedict repeatedly came back to the theme of his trip, hope, and exhorted his audiences to pray and follow Jesus. At Dunwoodie, he said, "The hope which never disappoints is Jesus Christ," while at St. Patrick's, he said that fidelity and faith could lead to a "new springtime in the spirit" for the Catholic Church in America.

"When we leave this great church, let us go forth as heralds of hope in the midst of this city, and all those places where God's grace has placed us," he said.

Many in his audiences couldn't hear his speeches because of technical problems, couldn't understand the words because of his accent, or didn't even have a chance because they were standing outside. And for many, that didn't seem to matter.

"Oh my God! There he is! Oh my God!" shouted Sisan Walker, 20, of Miami, who flew to New York without a ticket to yesterday's Mass at St. Patrick's or today's at Yankee Stadium, for a chance to glimpse the passing popemobile from a crowded sidewalk.

She and a friend, Doriana Vega, 22, of Mexico, arrived outside the cathedral at 5:30 a.m. and waited until 1:22 p.m. to see Benedict. When his popemobile began to approach, Walker was so excited she couldn't hold up the piece of pink cardboard on which she had scrawled, "We [heart] Benedict XVI" in magic marker. Instead she handed it to a nearby priest, who held it aloft.

Inside the cathedral, priests and nuns, many of whom have suffered from crises of confidence in the wake of the abuse crisis, were clearly moved.

"In the US, we're hungry for something, for somebody we can believe in, something bigger than ourselves," said the Rev. Patrick Woods, a Redemptorist official from New York. "We're anxious to be uplifted. We've had a lot of bleak years."

Out at Dunwoodie, teens danced and sang as musical acts performed, including the Rev. Stan Fortuna, a rapping Franciscan friar ("Yo, Pope Benedict was talking to the bishops the other day, and check out what he said!") who sang Catholic-themed pop songs while playing an electric guitar, as well as American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, who performed her hits along with a spiritual number, "Up To The Mountain."

When the pope arrived, around 5:15 p.m., the youngsters cheered and waved yellow-and-white kerchiefs. Some rushed to the edge of the field trying to get closer to the popemobile - a bulletproof white Mercedes-Benz vehicle in which the pope is enclosed in a glass compartment so he can wave to the crowd.

"It's really empowering to see youth, especially from across the nation, come together for a cause," said Sarah Doyle, 18, of Worcester, who was one of 45 Boston University students who made the pilgrimage to the event in matching red T-shirts. Leo Gameng, a 21-year-old BU junior, echoed that sentiment, saying "it's such a blessing that our church is this strong."

Today, Benedict is to visit ground zero, say Mass at Yankee Stadium, and then, at 8 p.m., board the chartered Alitalia jet nicknamed Shepherd One for his return flight to Rome.

Paulson reported from New York City, and Levenson from Yonkers. Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.