Benedict visits America

The Pope celebrates his 81st birthday and the 3rd anniversary of his election during his visit to America this week.

The Pope's first visit to the United States begins today. He will visit Ground Zero on April 20 and his prayer is expected to be the emotional high-point of his tour.

The Pope will ask for "eternal light and peace to all who died" in the tragedy. His prayer will remember "the heroic first-responders: our firefighters, police officers, emergency service workers… along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy".

Around 3,000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre, including the 19 hijackers.

The prayer will also mention the victims "on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania".

The Pope will conclude: "Bring Your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the earth." He will then sprinkle the crater with holy water and bless the site.

Security for the visit will be some of the tightest New York has seen. Ray Kelly, the city's police commissioner, said it would be like having a UN general assembly, followed by a parade, followed by a presidential visit.

Aircraft will be banned from flying under 3,000 feet while the Pope is at Ground Zero. No-fly zones will also be set up above St Joseph's Seminary and Yankee Stadium while the Pope is present.

The Pope's itinerary includes a Mass at the baseball stadium, and he will also address the United Nations.

He will visit the White House on the first leg of his trip in Washington DC, although his spokesman said yesterday that he would not attend a state dinner given in his honour.
The Vatican did not offer a reason for his absence.

The Pope will hold talks with President George W Bush, but Cardinal Raffaele Martino, one of the Vatican's most senior prelates, said the Holy See "cannot renounce its own beliefs on this visit, which are a rejection of the [Iraq] war and the constant encouragement of dialogue to resolve differences".

All the venues on the Pope's itinerary will be swept for bombs, while the authorities in New York said that there would also be divers in the East River, roof-top snipers, helicopters and undercover detectives carrying tiny radiation detectors on their belts. While he is in New York, the Pope will stay with Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the papal ambassador to the UN.
The street off Fifth Avenue where the archbishop lives will be closed and all residents "will be escorted to their homes by police officers".

The Vatican has also announced that the Pope will confront the issue of paedophile priests while he is in the United States. Several Catholic organisations have protested that he will not visit Boston, the epicentre of the sex abuse scandal.

One group took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.

However, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said that the Pope would address the issue in a speech and that the Church needed "constant purification" over the issue.