A positive step; Benedict's meeting with victims signals change.

COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

Even before his plane touched down on American soil, Pope Benedict XVI indicated that addressing the clergy sexual abuse scandal figured prominently on his agenda. His meeting in Washington with five victims of abuse in the Boston Archdiocese by no means lays the issue to rest. Still, it was a positive gesture of recognition of the suffering of hundreds of innocents - and the serious damage, albeit largely self-inflicted, it has done to the Roman Catholic Church in America.

The meeting signals a significant change in the Roman Catholic Church's approach. Until abuse and cover-ups in dioceses across the country were documented by the Boston Globe and other newspapers beginning in 2002, many bishops had reacted not by rooting out the abusers but by trying to keep the problem under wraps. Serial abusers were reassigned to "street ministries" or other dioceses, often to abuse again.

Benedict's head-on confrontation of clergy sexual abuse, in words and gestures such as the meeting with victims, contrasts sharply with the actions of his predecessor. When Pope John Paul II traveled to North America in 2002, he skipped the United States altogether.

It should go without saying that the ultimate test will be whether the church addresses the cover-ups by church leaders that enabled abusers in Boston, Worcester and other dioceses across the country. Still, the pope's willingness to address the issue openly is a very good start.