Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday that Roman Catholics must confront the "truly terrifying" problems within the Church in his strongest comments yet on sexual abuse by priests as he started a visit to Portugal.
"Today, we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but from the sin within the Church itself," the Pope said on the plane taking him to Lisbon for the four-day tour.
Tens of thousands of families, teenagers and the elderly gathered in the Portuguese capital to greet the 83-year-old Pontiff, and in many cases offer support to the Catholic leader as he battles the Church's biggest crisis in decades.
Pope Benedict said the victims' need for justice had to take priority. The Church has a "profound need" to "learn forgiveness and also the necessity of justice," but he underlined that "forgiveness does not replace justice." The comments were the strongest yet on the issue from Pope Benedict, whose five-year-old papacy has been rocked by allegations that the Vatican protected paedophile priests from prosecution in Europe and the US. Bishops sometimes simply moved accused priests to new parishes where the abuse continued.
The scandal, which has seen bishops offer their resignation in Ireland and Germany, has overshadowed preparations for the visit to overwhelmingly Catholic Portugal.
Wearing an ivory robe with a golden crucifix around his neck, a tired-looking Pope Benedict walked gingerly down the gangway steps to be met by President Anibal Cavaco Silva and his wife Maria.
The President welcomed the Pope to a "free and plural Portugal" whose people, he said, have "a calling to recognise the value of diversity".
The centre-right President is to decide next week whether to sign into law a Bill passed by Parliament which would make Portugal the sixth country to allow same-sex marriage.
Church authorities here said Pope Benedict, who has spoken out strongly against homosexual marriage, was likely to call on Portugal to uphold Christian values and urge solidarity across Europe's struggling economies.
"I come as a pilgrim to Our Lady of Fatima," the Pope said on the airport tarmac.
The Pope will celebrate open-air Mass tomorrow at Fatima, where three shepherd children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in 1917.
Tens of thousands of festive Portuguese lined the leafy suburbs of Lisbon as Pope Benedict took an eight-kilometre ride aboard his white bullet-proof Popemobile to the papal nunciature, and then on to the sumptuous 16th century Jeronimos monastery on the banks of the Tagus.
Yellow and white Vatican flags mixed with the red and green of Portugal and crowds chanted "Vivo o Papa" as Pope Benedict passed by, occasionally raising his hands in acknowledgement.
Away from the clamour, the Pontiff knelt for a few moments of silent prayer at the altar of the Santa Maria de Belem chapel during a brief tour of the the monastery, built by King Manuel I in the 1500s in thanksgiving for the explorer Vasco da Gama's voyage to India. It is now a Unesco World Heritage Site.
The near silence inside contrasted sharply with his arrival at the monastery, as a warship on the Tagus river boomed out a 21-gun salute and tassled presidential guards provided a mounted guard of honour.