Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 287

women religious, parents, teachers and catechists. The fidelity and courage

with which the Church in this country will respond to the challenges raised by

an increasingly secular and materialistic culture will depend in large part

upon your own fidelity in handing on the treasure of our Catholic faith.

Young people need to be helped to discern the path that leads to true free-

dom: the path of a sincere and generous imitation of Christ, the path of

commitment to justice and peace. Much progress has been made in develop-

ing solid programs of catechesis, yet so much more remains to be done in

forming the hearts and minds of the young in knowledge and love of the

Lord. The challenges confronting us require a comprehensive and sound in-

struction in the truths of the faith. But they also call for cultivating a mind-

set, an intellectual ''culture'', which is genuinely Catholic, confident in the

profound harmony of faith and reason, and prepared to bring the richness of

faith's vision to bear on the urgent issues which affect the future of American

society.

Dear friends, my visit to the United States is meant to be a witness to

''Christ our Hope''. Americans have always been a people of hope: your

ancestors came to this country with the expectation of finding new freedom

and opportunity, while the vastness of the unexplored wilderness inspired in

them the hope of being able to start completely anew, building a new nation

on new foundations. To be sure, this promise was not experienced by all the

inhabitants of this land; one thinks of the injustices endured by the native

American peoples and by those brought here forcibly from Africa as slaves.

Yet hope, hope for the future, is very much a part of the American character.

And the Christian virtue of hope - the hope poured into our hearts by the

Holy Spirit, the hope which supernaturally purifies and corrects our aspira-

tions by focusing them on the Lord and his saving plan - that hope has also

marked, and continues to mark, the life of the Catholic community in this

country.

It is in the context of this hope born of God's love and fidelity that I

acknowledge the pain which the Church in America has experienced as a

result of the sexual abuse of minors. No words of mine could describe the

pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have

suffered be given loving pastoral attention. Nor can I adequately describe the

damage that has occurred within the community of the Church. Great efforts

have already been made to deal honestly and fairly with this tragic situation,