Pope Benedict XVI will likely express regret and apologies to victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy when he visits Australia for World Youth Day next week, the leader of the country's Catholics said Monday.

Cardinal George Pell said the pope had expressed shame and regret when he spoke about the scandal of pedophile priests during his visit to the United States earlier this year and it was likely he would do something similar in Australia.

"He handled it very well in the United States and I anticipate he'll do the same here," Pell told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Pope Benedict faced the problem of sexual abuse in the church during his visit to Washington in April, calling the crisis a cause of “deep shame”. His sanctity had meetings with victims and vowed to keep pedophiles out of the ecclesiastic order.

Clergy sex abuse, some of it going back fifty years, emerged in prominent cases during the last couple of decades and has become a public matter in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and other countries.

Benedict is expected to arrive in Australia on Sunday and take three days vacation before his official welcome to Sydney at a harbourside ceremony for the beginning of World Youth Day celebrations.

The six-day event, which will end on July 20 with a papal mass, will be a pilgrimage opportunity for perhaps hundreds of thousands of foreign and local Catholics.