U.S. Church needs purification, pope says

By Philip Pullella

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, marking the third anniversary of his election, urged the U.S. Catholic Church on Saturday to overcome its divisions and seek "purification" and the truth following its sexual abuse scandal.

Benedict began the penultimate day of his first U.S. papal visit with a solemn Mass in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Gothic church completed in 1879 with the pennies of immigrants and known as the center of American Catholicism.

The pope rode down New York's usually bustling Fifth Avenue, a section of which was eerily deserted and sealed off by security agents, in a black limousine and emerged wearing a fur-fringed white cape.

He was welcomed on the steps of the great cathedral by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who earlier in an address inside the church joked about being Jewish.

"Pope Benedict could not have picked a better time to come to New York -- a beautiful spring weekend, the 200th anniversary of the archdiocese of New York, and on top of that it's Passover," Bloomberg said.

The Mass reflected New York's ethnic mix, with prayers in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, German and Akan, a group of languages from West Africa still used there and by the descendants of escaped slaves from South America.

For the fifth consecutive day, the pope spoke out about the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the U.S. Church and has cost it some $2 billion in settlement payments with victims.

In his sermon, he said he was spiritually close to the U.S. Church as it deals with the aftermath of the scandal and cleanses and renews itself.