Pope Benedict XVI prayed with tearful victims of clergy sex abuse in a chapel, in an extraordinary gesture from a pontiff who has made atoning for the great shame of the US church the cornerstone of his first papal trip to America.

TOP officials in Boston’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese will not face criminal charges for keeping abusive priests in church parishes, a spokesman for the attorney general said, a major blow for alleged victims who hoped church leaders would be held accountable.