The pattern of the pope cleaning up a mess created by other top church officials was first glimpsed in Portugal, after senior Vatican personnel had publicly compared criticism of the pope to anti-Semitism and \u201cpetty gossip.\u201d\u009d Benedict XVI changed the tone by insisting, in comments to reporters aboard the papal plane, that the real problem was not outside attacks but sin inside the church.<\/p>\n
That papal course correction continued on day one of his four-day trip to the United Kingdom, which got off to an inauspicious start as British papers played up a comment by German Cardinal Walter Kasper, recently retired as the Vatican\u2019s top ecumenical official, that landing at Heathrow Airport, one has the sense of arriving in a \u201cthird world country.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Kasper, who is not on the U.K. trip due to illness, also complained that an \u201caggressive atheism\u201d\u009d is speaking in Britain.<\/p>\n
That might have been the dominant day one story, had it not been for Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s comments aboard the papal plane on the sexual abuse crisis. The pontiff candidly acknowledged that the church was \u201cnot sufficiently vigilant and not sufficiently quick and decisive to take the necessary measures\u201d\u009d to combat the crisis.<\/p>\n