Pope to end U.S. visit with Ground Zero blessing

Pope Benedict will visit Ground Zero in New York on Sunday to offer a blessing and meet rescue workers, survivors and those who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

At the end of his six-day trip to the United States, the German-born pontiff will also celebrate an outdoor Mass at Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees baseball team.

The visit to Ground Zero, once site of the World Trade Centre and now a crater where new buildings and a memorial will be built, is expected to be the emotional high point of the pontiff's six-day U.S. trip that started in Washington.

At the site - considered hallowed ground by many who lost relatives in the al Qaeda attacks in September 2001 - Benedict will pray for the conversion to love "of those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred."

A prayer he will read also commemorates those who died or were wounded in the other September 11 attacks at the Pentagon and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought hijackers.

Throughout his first papal visit to the United States, Benedict spoke out about the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the U.S. Church and has cost it some $2 billion (1 billion pounds) in settlement payments with victims.

In a sermon at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday, he said he was spiritually close to the U.S. Church as it deals with the aftermath of the scandal and cleanses and renews itself.

In Washington on the first leg of the visit, the 81-year-old pope met victims of sexual abuse by priests. On his way to the United States, he said, "It is more important to have good priests than to have many priests."

His final public engagement before departing for Rome on Sunday evening will be the Mass at Yankee Stadium.

The stadium, which opened in 1923 and became known as "The House That Ruth Built" after the Yankees' famed slugger Babe Ruth, will be replaced next season by a stadium being built across the street from the old ballpark in New York's Bronx borough.

The stadium seats more than 55,000 people. Benedict will be the third pope to celebrate Mass there, following Pope Paul VI in 1965 and Pope John Paul II in 1979. Benedict also said Mass at Washington's new baseball park.