Pope Francis touched down in Dublin on Saturday for an historic two-day visit to Ireland, where the Catholic Church is battling to regain trust following multiple scandals.

His Alitalia “Shepherd One” flight landed under cloudless skies at 10:26am (0926 GMT), where deputy head of government Simon Coveney and his children were waiting to meet him with a bouquet of white and yellow roses with Irish foliage.

Hundreds of thousands of wellwishers and over a 1,000 journalists are expected to follow Francis during his tour of Dublin and County Mayo in the far west of the country.

Francis will tour Dublin on Saturday on his Popemobile before visiting a hostel for homeless families and giving a speech at Croke Park stadium.

The highlight of the visit will be an outdoor mass in the city’s Phoenix Park on Sunday, expected to draw 500,000 people — a tenth of the country’s entire population.

It is the first papal visit to Ireland since Pope John Paul II spoke to a crowd of 1.5 million people there in 1979.

The country has since undergone fundamental social change, becoming more secular — electing a gay prime minister and voting to legalise same-sex marriage and abortion.

The church has also been tarnished by clerical abuse scandals and victims and their supporters will hold a “Stand for Truth” demonstration in Dublin during the Sunday mass.

The Vatican confirmed Francis will meet with victims but provided no details, and said

It also said he was unlikely to announce specific measures to combat sexual abuse within the church following a devastating recent US report that accused more than 300 priests in the state of Pennsylvania of abusing more than 1,000 children since the 1950s.

In Tuam, a town in western Ireland, a silent vigil was planned in solidarity with victims of “mother and baby” homes — institutions accused of being punishment hostels for unwed pregnant women.

He will meet with President Michael D Higgins and Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar. </s> KNOCK, Ireland — The Latest on Pope Francis' trip to Ireland (all times local):

Pope Francis has denounced how Irish children were "robbed of their innocence and taken from their mothers" by Catholic Church-run institutions that put them up for adoption for the shame of having been born to unwed mothers.

Francis spoke out about Ireland's haunting history of forced adoptions during a prayer Sunday in Knock, the country's main shrine dedicated to Christ's mother, Mary.

He did so after meeting Saturday with some of the adoptees, who urged him to denounce the practice, demand an apology from the religious sisters responsible and assure the mothers they could search now for their lost children without fear of sin.

Francis prayed that such abuses never occur again and for the church "to proceed with justice and reparation, where responsible, for the violences."

Pope Francis has visited a famous shrine in Ireland and was to celebrate a Mass dedicated to families a day after an emotional meeting with victims of cleric sex abuse and some of Ireland's thousands of forced adoptees.

Francis arrived Sunday in Knock, the Marian shrine in northwestern Ireland, where he prayed and blessed thousands of jubilant Irish faithful, who gathered in raincoats under clouds.

Francis' first day in Ireland was dominated by the abuse scandal and Ireland's fraught history of atrocities committed in the name of preserving the Catholic faith. He received a lukewarm reception on the streets, but tens of thousands thronged Dublin's Croke Park Stadium for a family rally and concert.

The U.S. sexual abuse scandal took on a new twist Sunday, with a former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. purportedly penning a letter accusing Vatican officials of knowing about the sexual escapades of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick since 2000, but making him a cardinal anyway. The letter was attributed to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a staunch conservative. </s> Pope Francis touched down in Dublin on Saturday for an historic two-day visit to Ireland, where the Catholic Church is battling to regain trust following multiple sexual abuse scandals.

His Alitalia "Shepherd One" flight landed under cloudless skies at 10:26am (0926 GMT), and he emerged from the aircraft around 20 minutes later to a round of applause.

He was met on the red carpet by deputy head of government Simon Coveney and his children, who presented him with a bouquet of white and yellow roses with Irish foliage.

It is the first papal visit to the former bastion of Catholicism since Pope John Paul II spoke to a crowd of 1.5 million people in 1979.

ALSO READ | Pope on sex abuse: "We showed no care for the little ones"

Hundreds of thousands of wellwishers and over a 1,000 journalists are expected to follow Francis during his tour of Dublin and County Mayo in the far west of the country as the church struggles against the tide in Ireland.

A new generation has shed traditional mores, electing a gay prime minister and voting to legalise same-sex marriage and abortion -- both once unthinkable.

Fintan O'Toole, a columnist for the Irish Times, said the Catholic Church in Ireland was "in some ways beyond repair".

"He will be greeted with joy by the faithful, but few, even among them, will expect him to be able to fix an institution that has been shaken to its very foundations," he wrote.

The Vatican was rocked this month by a devastating US report into child sex abuse that accused more than 300 priests in the state of Pennsylvania of abusing more than 1,000 children since the 1950s.

The pope wrote a letter to the world's 1.3 billion Catholics vowing to prevent future "atrocities" but conceding no efforts "to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient".

Ireland has grappled with its own history of abuse, with multiple probes finding Catholic Church leaders protected hundreds of predatory priests over decades.

Former Irish president Mary McAleese revealed this month she rebuffed Vatican attempts in 2003 to keep Church documents inaccessible to government investigators.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, a symbol of Ireland's social sea change, has said he will press Francis for full disclosure to the police of abuse allegations received by Church officials when the pair meet briefly in Dublin on Saturday.

"We've brought in mandatory reporting over the last year and that's not the case in other countries," he told Sky News on Friday.

The Argentine pontiff will be in Ireland to close the 2018 World Meeting of Families (WMOF) -- a global Catholic gathering that takes place every three years.

In a video message released on Tuesday, he said he was "excited at the thought of returning to Ireland".

Francis will tour Dublin on Saturday on his Popemobile before visiting a hostel for homeless families and giving a speech at Croke Park stadium.

The highlight of the visit will be an outdoor mass in the city's Phoenix Park on Sunday expected to draw 500,000 people -- a tenth of the country's entire population.

Priests and nuns from across Ireland have flocked to the capital, where merchandise -- from candles to dolls to t-shirts all bearing his image -- are on sale.

Critics of the Church have also been preparing for Francis.

Victims of clergy abuse and their supporters will hold a "Stand for Truth" demonstration in Dublin during the Sunday mass.

"We cannot stay silent as the Vatican uses its power and pomp to forcefully deny the reality of the harm it has done," organisers wrote on Facebook, where nearly 3,000 people had signed up to attend.

In Tuam, a town in western Ireland, a silent vigil was planned in solidarity with victims of "mother and baby" homes -- institutions accused of being punishment hostels for unwed pregnant women.

The Irish government in 2015 launched a commission to investigate 18 such homes -- the last of which closed in 1996 -- after revelations that up to 800 infants may have died over several decades at one run by Catholic nuns in Tuam.

Accusations of wide-ranging abuse in Irish Catholic institutions in Ireland date back several decades.

"We have such a history of abuse and so many have had their lives destroyed," Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical abuse, told AFP.

"It is important that while he is here this issue is addressed face on and we get clear words as to what he's going to do and what is going to happen next."

The Vatican confirmed Francis will meet with victims but provided no details while adding that he was unlikely to announce specific measures to combat sexual abuse. </s> ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Pope Francis arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, the first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian Peninsula, where he will meet with Muslim and political leaders and celebrate an outdoor mass in the capital Abu Dhabi.

The pope, who landed at Abu Dhabi’s airport, will stay in the UAE until Tuesday. </s> Pope Francis, on the first papal visit to Ireland Saturday in almost four decades, expressed "outrage" Saturday over the Catholic Church's cover-up of sex abuse and later met with eight survivors of what the Vatican called "clerical, religious and institutional abuse."

Ireland is ground zero of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis, with the institution under fire across the globe for its systemic failures to protect children or to punish bishops who hid the crimes.

“With regard to the most vulnerable, I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Pope Francis said, speaking in Italian.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community," he said in a speech to Irish government authorities. "I myself share these sentiments.”

He did not indicate, however, whether he plans to take forceful action to hold bishops accountable for protecting children or to sanction them when they fall short.

The pope did meet later with the eight survivors, including some abused sexually and several who as infants were forcibly separated from their mothers in church-run orphans homes.

Francis referred to the past remarks of Pope Benedict in a letter to Irish Catholics saying that he “spared no words in recognizing both the gravity of the situation” and in demanding that “truly evangelical, just and effective” measures be taken in response “to this betrayal of trust.”

In their meeting with the pope, the group of survivors delivered a letter calling on the pontiff to condemn the forced separations of 100,000 mothers from their children in notorious adoption centers.

“The nuns have never taken responsibility for their willful neglect," the letter said, according to the Irish Times. "We ask you Pope Francis to publicly call on these nuns to acknowledge their actions and issue an open and unqualified apology."

The pope, in turn, agreed to end a mass on Sunday by telling mothers who had given up their children for adoption that there was no sin in now looking for their children, the newspaper reported.

Pope Francis arrives at The Festival of Families event at Croke Park on August 25, 2018 in Dublin, Ireland.

Upon his arrival from Rome, Pope Francis sought to get ahead of the public criticism in his opening remarks to several hundred dignitaries from Irish political, civic and religious life.

“It is my hope that the gravity of the abuse scandals, which have cast a light on the failings of many, will serve to emphasize the importance of the protection of minors and vulnerable adults on the part of society as a whole,” he said, according to a transcript published by the Irish Times.

But neither Francis’ words nor a new meeting with abuse victims is likely to calm the outrage among rank-and-file Catholics following new revelations of sexual misconduct and cover-up in the United States, an ongoing crisis in Chile and prosecutions of top clerics in Australia and France.

Colm O’Gorman, who is leading a solidarity rally Sunday in Dublin for abuse victims, said Francis’ remarks about the shame felt by Catholics were an “insult to faithful Catholics, who have no reason to feel shame because of the crimes of the Vatican and the institutional church.”

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-founder of the online resource Bishop Accountability, said Francis “gave little comfort to heartsick victims” since he provided no details on how he would end the problem, since he alone can sanction complicit bishops.

A small group of protesters demonstrated against the pope’s visit outside Dublin Castle, with one banner reading: “Pedophile supporters go home.”

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, in remarks in Dublin Castle before the pontiff spoke, set the tone for the visit in saying the time had come to build a "new" and "more mature" relationship between the Catholic Church and the Irish state.

“Building on our intertwined history, and learning from our shared mistakes and responsibilities, it can be one in which religion is no longer at the center of our society, but one in which it continues to have an important place,” he said.

He referred to "dark aspects" of the Catholic Church's history in Ireland, including illegal adoptions and child abuse by the clergy, as “stains on our State, our society and also the Catholic Church.”

Varadkar called the abuse “unspeakable crimes" that were perpetrated by people within the church "and then obscured to protect the institution."

"It is a story that was all too tragically familiar to people in Ireland," he said, according to the Times.

Addressing the Church’s handling of clerical sex abuse, the prime minister said there “can only be zero tolerance for those who abuse innocent children or who facilitate the abuse.”

Ireland has had one of the worst records of abuse in the world. Crimes were revealed to the deeply Catholic nation’s 4.8 million people through a series of government-mandated inquiries over the past decade. The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped or molested by priests and physically abused in church-run schools while bishops covered up for abusers. </s> The Pope has spent 90 minutes meeting Irish survivors of clerical abuse and mistreatment in Dublin. The “polite and cordial” discussion focused on the plight of past residents of Catholic homes for mothers and babies and victims of forced and illegal adoption. The meeting took place at the Papal Nuncio’s residence. The Papal Nuncio is the Pope’s diplomatic representative to Ireland. A letter from survivors released afterwards said: “Around 100,000 single mothers who were forcibly separated from their babies were regularly told it was a mortal sin to search for, or even contact, their own sons and daughters. “As an act of healing, Pope Francis, we ask that you make it clear to the now elderly and dying community of natural mothers and adoptees that there is no sin in reunion and rather that it is a joyous event that should be encouraged and facilitated by the Catholic Church.” They said many natural mothers and adoptees will be in attendance at a papal Mass on Sunday.

The letter added: “Five orders and congregations of Catholic nuns ran Ireland’s notorious Mother and Baby homes where over 6,000 babies and children died as well as dozens of young mothers. “These nuns have never taken responsibility for their wilful neglect. We ask you, Pope Francis, to publicly call on these nuns to acknowledge their actions and issue an unqualified apology to all the survivors of their institutions. “We also request that you call on these nuns to immediately commit to paying the full cost of the current inquiry and any redress that may be awarded in the future.” The papal visit to Ireland has so far been dominated by the Vatican’s response to clerical abuse. Clodagh Malone, who was born in Saint Patrick’s Mother and Baby home in Dublin and adopted at 10 weeks old, asked the Pope to publicly state that the natural mothers who lost their babies to adoption had done nothing wrong, and call for reconciliation and reunion for these families broken by the Catholic Church both in Ireland and around the world. The Pope agreed to include the message in his Mass on Sunday, survivors said. Paul Redmond, who was born in Castlepollard Mother and Baby home in Co Westmeath and adopted at 17 days, asked the Pope to publicly call upon the orders of nuns who ran the homes to immediately accept their responsibilities for the “horror” that went on for generations in the homes, issue an unqualified and sincere apology, and pay the full costs of inquiries and redress in Ireland as a matter of urgency. The Pope did apologise to all for what happened in the homes, the survivors said. </s> ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Latest on Pope Francis' visit to the United Arab Emirates (all times local):

Pope Francis has been greeted by Abu Dhabi's powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on his arrival to the Arabian Peninsula.

A young boy and girl in traditional Emirati dress handed the pontiff flowers after landing Sunday night. The two leaders then walked past an honor guard, all with traditional Arabic daggers at their waists.

Pope Francis and Sheikh Mohammed smiled and spoke to each other as they walked through the airport terminal.

The pope also met a host of Cabinet ministers in a greeting line, as well as local Catholic and Muslim officials.

Pope Francis has landed in Abu Dhabi on the first papal trip ever to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.

Pope Francis' Alitalia flight touched down in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, around 9:50 p.m. on Sunday.

While Francis is building on two of his priorities with his Sunday-Tuesday visit to the United Arab Emirates — promoting interfaith dialogue and visiting the Catholic peripheries — diplomatic protocol will likely dictate that he leaves other concerns behind.

The Emirates' support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, which has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the UAE's problematic record on human rights and labor violations at home likely will get a pass — at least in public.

However, Francis did appeal earlier Sunday for an end to Yemen's humanitarian crisis, saying the "cries of these children and their parents rise up" to God.

Christian leaders attending a summit ahead of Pope Francis' arrival in Abu Dhabi say they're excited for the first papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula.

Bishop Camillo Ballin, the apostolic vicar of Northern Arabia, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the Roman Catholic Church provided succor for an estimated 1 million faithful in the United Arab Emirates, nearly all of them foreigners drawn to the country for employment.

Ballin said: "His visit is a big and important encouragement for the Christians that live in these countries because they are far from their homeland and they need especially to be encouraged so that they feel they are home."

Rev. Andrew Thompson of St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Abu Dhabi said his congregation was excited for Pope Francis' Mass on Tuesday.

Thompson said: "My congregation are so happy we are witnessing what will be the biggest Christian act of worship in the history of the Arabian Gulf, and we are excited to be a part of that."

Pope Francis has appealed for the end of Yemen's humanitarian crisis, saying the "cries of these children and their parents rise up" to God.

He made the appeal at the Vatican an hour before his scheduled departure on a three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, which is a key member of the Saudi-led coalition at war with Yemen's Iran-aligned rebels. The conflict has driven Yemen to the brink of famine and caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Francis urged faithful in St. Peter's Square to join him in prayer, saying "these are hungry children" with no medicine, and "are in danger of dying." Noting that many can't reach food aid areas, he appealed to the involved parties and the international community to urgently ensure that agreements are reached and food distributed.

Francis is expected in the United Arab Emirates later Sunday, where he will become the first pontiff to visit the Arabian Peninsula.

Emiratis are welcoming Pope Francis' trip to Abu Dhabi, the first-ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula, where Islam was born.

The National, a state-linked, English-language newspaper in Abu Dhabi, described the pope's three-day visit beginning Sunday as "a dream come true" for the country's estimated 1 million Roman Catholics.

The newspaper said: "With that moment will come a lifetime of gratitude to the UAE's rulers, who last year invited Pope Francis to visit the country and have fostered a society in which freedom of worship is afforded to all."

While Christians can worship in churches built on land donated by the country's rulers, proselytizing by non-Muslims is illegal. Blasphemy and apostasy laws also carry a possible death sentence.

Meanwhile, Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE's powerful ambassador to Washington, wrote in a Politico column that "religion today is a treacherous fault line that divides the region."

He added: "But the true faith of Muslims, Christians and Jews has never been about hate or fanaticism. There is no clash of civilizations or ideas - only a rash of ignorance and a deficit of courage and moral leadership."

Pope Francis is seeking to turn a page in Christian-Muslim relations while also ministering to a unique, thriving island of Catholicism as he embarks on the first-ever papal trip to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.

While Francis is building on two of his priorities with his Sunday-Tuesday visit to the United Arab Emirates — promoting interfaith dialogue and visiting the Catholic peripheries — diplomatic protocol will likely dictate that he leaves other concerns behind.

The Emirates' support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, which has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the UAE's problematic record on human rights and labor violations at home will likely will get a pass — at least in public. </s> The simmering resentment of some Catholic clergy in Ireland over low attendance at events during the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland has finally broken surface. It has found a predictable target – the media, a scapegoat overtly identified by Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran, for instance.

In a message to priests and deacons in his diocese, announcing a collection at all churches next weekend to help defray costs arising from the World Meeting of Families and the papal visit, he was clear.

There was, he said, “a shortfall in fundraising income due in no small measure to the consistent negative coverage in the media in the final weeks of preparation. Some ‘fruit’ died on the ‘trees’.” He said the bishops had decided “on an additional national collection on November 10th and 11th to help defray the deficit…”

The cost to the church of the World Meeting of Families and the papal visit was €19.4 million. Of this €15.4 million was raised through four national collections and other donations, leaving a shortfall of €4 million.

Bishop Doran is not alone. At the Association of Catholic Priests annual general meeting in Athlone last month, Fr Gerry O’Connor of its leadership team read from a draft letter they plan sending to the bishops.

It speaks of “a sinking feeling that the [papal] visit and the expectations it generated were derailed by an unexpected, though not unpredicted, focus on the sexual abuse issue”. It referred to “the virulence of the negative commentary and the lack of engagement by so many Catholics with the visit”.

Last month Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin also said the World Meeting of Families was “the tale of two congresses: there’s what happened on the ground, and then there’s what happened in the media”. There had been “a huge concentration on the abuse issue” [in the media], he said.

He had the grace to add that this “was merited” by abuse reports from the US and around the world.

Similarly, with Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin. The lead-up to the World Meeting of Families was “disheartening, given the reports from abroad such as the Pennsylvania grand jury, the Australian Royal Commission and others, as well as the revisiting in the media of many of the traumas of our own past, the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes as well as clerical child abuse,” he said in Kilkenny on October 27th.

As to his latter point, an Irish media which in the lead-up to a visit by Pope Francis ignored “many of the traumas of our own past”, as revealed since the last papal visit in 1979, would have been distinctly derelict.

But let us look at what emerged prior to last August’s events in Ireland.

On July 1st, the Australian government announced a redress scheme for people sexually abused as children in institutions there. Last May the Catholic Church said it would join that redress scheme as almost 2,500 survivors gave evidence of their sexual abuse in institutions run by it.

On July 28th, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of former archbishop of Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after he faced credible allegations of sexually abusing a teenager.

On August 9th, the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reported “appalling” levels of sexual abuse inflicted over a 40-year period on pupils at two leading Catholic schools in England, Ampleforth and Downside.

The late archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Basil Hume (who faced no allegations), was a pupil, a teacher, and abbot at Ampleforth for 13 years before becoming archbishop of Westminster in 1976.

On August 14th, a Pennsylvania grand jury report found that over 1,000 children had been abused by as many as 300 Catholic priests in six dioceses there over a 70-year period.

On August 15th, Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Seán O’Malley, chair of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, announced he would not attend the World Meeting of Families in Dublin due to an abuse scandal at St John’s seminary in Boston. He was to chair a session on abuse.

On August 18th, the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, announced he too would not be delivering a keynote address or attending the World Meeting of Families following criticism in the Pennsylvania grand jury report of him while bishop of Pittsburgh. He has since resigned.

On August 26th, the last day of Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland, former papal nuncio to Washington Archbishop Carlo Vigano published a letter accusing the pope himself of covering up abuse by Cardinal McCarrick.

This, then, was the context in which the World Meeting of Families took place in Dublin and Pope Francis visited Ireland. Those in the church who blame media for disappointments arising might well heed warnings by Pope Francis himself against attitudes of clericalism, when he spoke to Ireland’s bishops before returning to Rome.

It would appear a more appropriate response than reaching for the Donald Trump hymn sheet. </s> Pope Francis addresses journalists during the traditional press conference on his flight back to Rome, following a two-day visit at Fatima, Portugal, Saturday, May 13, 2017. Pope Francis added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints Saturday, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool Photo via AP)
Pope Francis holds Sunday Mass at Phoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland for the World Meeting of Families.