sex abuse

For 25 remarkable minutes, the shepherd of the world's 1 billion Catholics met in Washington, D.C., with a handful of victims in the worst scandal to ever tarnish the U.S. Catholic Church. One man, abused as an altar boy, said he placed his hand over Pope Benedict XVI's heart as he pleaded with him to fix the problem of sexual abuse of minors. The pontiff apologized to his guests for not being perfectly fluent in English, and ''for everything,'' according to another victim. Plans for the secret meeting were kept quiet. But two Boston-area victims of abuse shared details of the meeting in interviews late Thursday with the Associated Press.