The private meeting came on the second day of Benedict's four-day trip to Germany, where record numbers of Catholics have officially left the faith in protest at clerical abuse, and where the Church faces some 600 requests for compensation.
The Pope was "moved and deeply shaken" and assured victims the Church was "committed to the promotion of effective measures to protect children," the Vatican said in a statement.
The meeting took place in a seminary in Erfurt, in eastern Germany, and was similar to those held by Benedict on other recent trips. The wording of the statement also mirrored those issued after previous meetings.
Victims' associations have said the Vatican has not done enough to bring the perpetrators to justice, a view echoed by German victims who joined 8,000 protesters on a march through Berlin, where the Pope began his visit.
Earlier on Friday the Pope visited the monastery where Martin Luther lived before launching the Reformation, and warned his Lutheran hosts that "a new form of Christianity" posed challenges to mainline Protestants and Catholics alike.
While not naming them, it was clear he was referring to the evangelical and Pentecostal churches which have spread rapidly, especially in developing countries, by attracting converts from more established churches.
He appealed for unity between Roman Catholics and Protestants, who began their split from the Catholic Church when Luther, who had lived in Erfurt as a Catholic monk, posted his 95 theses on a church door in 1517.
Few people turned out to see the pope in Erfurt, a Protestant city under tight security for the visit, but about 90,000 Catholics -- 40,000 more than expected -- flooded the nearby Catholic town of Etzelsbach [sic] for a vespers service.
Benedict told the Lutherans: "Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss.
"This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability. This worldwide phenomenon poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?" » | Philip Pullella and Sarah Marsh | ERFURT, Germany | Friday, September 23, 2011
