Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Centre in New York, has become a compulsory stop on the modern sightseeing loop of America’s most recognisable city. There is something almost routine now about the way tourists and world leaders stop at the hallowed ground to pay their respects to those who lost their lives that day.

But yesterday, when the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics made his first visit to the site, in a city where almost half the population is Catholic and where so many of the emergency services who worked and perished there that day hailed from Iris-h-American and Italian-American families, there was still something quite special about the occasion.

Shortly after 9.30 am the Pope emerged from his Popemobile on the ramp leading into the base of the former Twin Towers.

There was none of the wild cheering that has followed the Pontiff elsewhere on his five-day visit to the US. Instead he was greeted by a mournful silence from the small crowd of dignitaries, relatives of victims and emergency responders who worked at the site that day and afterwards as he knelt and prayed at the site of the worst terrorist attack in history.

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The Pope lit a candle and offered a prayer and then blessed the site with holy water. The symbolism of the occasion embraced not only the sight of the Pope on his knees at a place of such human suffering, but the spectacle of one of the leaders of Western civilisation paying his respects at the site of the most visible of clashes between Islamic extremism and Western modernity. Benedict’s prayers included one for an end to violence: “God of peace. . . turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.”

The Pope then spoke individually to a dozen of the family members and emergency workers.

Benedict’s visit to the site was among the final highlights of what was – as even critics of the Church acknowledge – a remarkably successful first trip by the Pontiff to the country that is home to the world’s second-largest population of Catholics.

Throughout the visit Benedict surprised Americans – who knew him mostly from his reputation as the stern enforcer of Vatican doctrine – with his warmth, openness and above all, perhaps, unexpected glimpses of his personal side.

His trip was dominated by his eagerness to confront the sexual abuse scandal that has done so much damage to the Church’s standing in America.

Benedict’s repeated denunciations of the actions of priests who abused minors over decades, as well as his criticism of the church leadership which failed to act quickly to halt the abuse, and above all his unprecedented meeting with five victims of abuse at his papal residence in Washington last week, have far exceeded expectations about his and the Vatican’s willingness to acknowledge the Church’s failures.

Vatican officials said during the trip that the words would be followed by actions to ensure that the Church would never again permit such abuses to take place. In keeping with the theme of openness, the Pope has also spoken on his trip about growing up under the “monster” of Nazism, telling an audience of some 30,000 young people that his own youth had been “marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers”. Benedict came from a German family opposed to the Nazi regime but was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a teenager.

“Its influence grew – infiltrating schools and civic bodies as well as politics and even religion – before it was fully recognised for the monster it was. It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good,” he said.

He has impressed Americans with a human touch that few thought could match that of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

On Saturday, at Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, he offered thanks to the Church in America with an arresting humility. Describing himself as “the poor successor of Saint Peter”, he thanked his American hosts and asked for their prayers.

“I will try to do all that is possible to be a worthy successor of the great Apostle, who also was a man with faults and sins, but remained in the end the rock for the Church.”

After his trip to Ground Zero, the Pope celebrated his final Mass of his visit last night for 55,000 congregants at Yankee Stadium, home of America’s most famous sporting franchise, before leaving for Rome.

Rising again

— Construction work on a new World Trade Centre, comprising five towers, began in April 2006

— The tallest building will be the Freedom Tower, 1,776 ft (540m) tall – a number that marks the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence

— The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower was laid in a ceremony on July 4, 2004, but construction was delayed for two years because of problems between the developer and government agencies

— The new World Trade Centre will include a September 11 memorial and museum, a transport hub, shopping complex and performing arts centre

— Work on the site is expected to be completed in 2012

Sources: www.wtc.com, Times archives

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