Pope Benedict XVI's trip to America has been a mission in damage control that would give the most skilled politician pause.

The pontiff might as well have flown to the U.S. on a huge albatross, such has been the fallout from the U.S. Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal and the Nixonian cover-up.

However out of touch you think the Vatican is, the pope had to know he was facing a tough slog.

Obviously, the papal visit has been more pomp than gloom and doom. Mostly, the pontiff has been greeted like a cross between a rock star and royalty. But the sex-abuse scandal involving pedophile priests preying on their young flock was never far in the background.

"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," he said during yesterday's Mass -- one of several occasions he voiced regret on the abuse issue.

Later, he met privately with some of the victims of clergy sex abuse. "We hope that those victims find healing and that it was useful for them," said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "But what we're worried about is there's still no action. We have lofty words, pronouncements, but still no action."

Not one U.S. bishop or cardinal has been held accountable, she said. SNAP wrote Benedict in January seeking an audience with him. "Our letter was never answered," Dorris said.

"You have to understand, he's been pope for three years. He's had three years to work on this issue," she said. "We expected and hoped that he would take decisive action."

Becky Ianni, a SNAP leader in Northern Virginia, said she was abused along with her brother by a parish priest in Alexandria. The abuse began when she was 9. "I hope and I pray that the victims that met with [Benedict] today get healing from their meeting," said Ianni, 50. "This is a great step, but we hope that the pope goes ahead and takes action."

As for the papal visit so close to her home, "I think for myself, I'm just very emotional. There was a lot of sorrow in the fact that I'm no longer Catholic. . . . I don't feel the same way about the pope that I once did."

During his visit, Benedict has hit some of the right notes. But his attempt to put the priest pedophilia in "the wider context of sexual mores" struck a bit flat with me.

"Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships," he said Wednesday. "They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today. . . . What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?"

Blaming the abuses of pedophile priests on media pornography and violence is not unlike blaming crime and misogyny on the media. It's a cop-out.

But there's plenty of criticism to go around. And while he's scolding U.S. bishops, the pontiff might more forcefully acknowledge the failure of the Vatican to react to the scandals in a timely and forceful fashion.

Unless the Vatican is willing to risk even more Catholics tuning out its pronouncements on matters of sexuality, the pope must get the church's house in order. As Ianni said, "He's the only one who truly has this power to make a change."
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.