Chicago Area Local News

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Pope Benedict XVI , in his first visit to the United States, has surprised people with a personal warmth and direct manner that are not what many Americans expected to see, and are not exactly typical of a longtime Vatican bureaucrat.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the Holy Father arrived with a red carpet welcome in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. His six-day agenda includes a meeting with President Bush, and a trip to New York where he will address the United Nations.

Chicago is not on the pope's agenda, but Francis Cardinal George is among those who are hosting him.

If you could ask the pope one question, what would it be?

The pope may be turning 81 Wednesday, but you'd never know from his stride and his smile. The new job may have made the former Joseph Ratzinger a new man.

"Our conversations used to be about doctrine, now he's talking about everything, more of a pastor, anxious to touch base with peoples' experience," Cardinal George said.

Cardinal George and Archbishop Gerald Kicanas, the vice president of the U.S. Bishops' Conference, both Chicagoans, greeted the Pope.

"To see his comfortability with people, his warmth and interest, you a sense of that immediately," Kicanas said.

The Pope's arrival was the only public event of his first day in America, and his schedule is nowhere near the breakneck pace his predecessor set when traveling.

But one precedent he did continue was taking questions from reporters aboard Shepherd One, though they had to be submitted in advance and only four were chosen by the Vatican to be read aloud.

To one of them about the child sex abuse crisis, he answered, he was "Deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future."

"It's difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing and to give the love of God to these children," Pope Benedict said. "We are deeply ashamed, and we will do all that is possible that this cannot happen in the future."

He pledged to work hard to exclude pedophiles from the priesthood saying it was "more important to have good priests than many priests."

Earlier Tuesday on the campus of Catholic University, while Cardinal George was still going over all the scheduling details for the visit, he told CBS 2 he'd anticipated the Pope's comments and expected there'd be more throughout the week, but as of now there were no meetings with victims or their advocates scheduled.

"Well how do you choose out of the some thousands of victims that have come forward, how do you choose who should be talking to the Holy Father? But if you could settle that problem, I'm sure he could meet with some," Cardinal George said. "I just don't know where they would put it into the schedule. Everything is possible."

If such a meeting does take place, victims' groups are concerned that the victims will be hand-selected by church leaders, and not equipped to plead the argument for what they believe is the necessary next step – taking action against those who covered up for and kept transferring abusers.

"Lofty words are one thing. Action is the only way to protect children and that's what we're looking for from the pope on this trip," said Barbara Blaine of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

There's apt to be more direct conversation at the White House Wednesday, with President George W. Bush, who broke with protocol and personally greeted Pope Benedict at the airport.

Cardinal George conceded the two men are likely to disagree on many issues, including immigration, the war in Iraq and treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to name a few.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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