SYDNEY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict flew by helicopter on Sunday over hundreds of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims who staged an all-night vigil at Sydney's main horse racing track ahead of an outdoor papal mass.

Benedict then traveled by popemobile to the Randwick Jockey Club track where up to 300,000 pilgrims had gathered to hear the 81-year-old pontiff conduct mass to end World Youth Day, the Catholic Church's biggest youth festival.

The pope was greeted by screaming, flag waving pilgrims.

The Catholic Church hopes World Youth Day, the brainchild of the late Pope John Paul II, will revitalize the world's young Catholics at a time when the cult of the individual and consumerism has become big distractions in their daily lives.

Up to 200,000 pilgrims from around the world camped out at the race track overnight, singing into the night in temperatures that dipped to about 8 degrees Celsius.

WYD is the Church's version of Woodstock, five days and nights of peace, love and Christianity. More than 165 concerts have been staged, from religious music to heavy metal, acid jazz, and rap, along with mass confessionals and pray meetings.

But World Youth Day has been overshadowed by the issue of sexual abuse by clergy.

Benedict on Saturday apologized directly for the first time for sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, but victims groups in Australia said they wanted action and not words.

The pope, making some of his most explicit comments on the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Church in several countries, also said unequivocally that those responsible should be brought to justice.

Broken Rites, which represents abuse victims in Australia, has a list of 107 convictions for church abuse, but says there could be thousands of victims as only a few cases go to court.

The pope confronted sexual abuse in the Church in the United States during a visit there in April, meeting victims and vowing to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

In Australia, home to the world's biggest gay and lesbian mardi gras and where abortion and stem cell research is legal, the Catholic church's teachings often fall on deaf ears.

Some 5 million Australians describe themselves as Catholic, but less than one million attend Sunday mass and the number may have dropped to about 100,000 in the past 5 years.

Around 1,000 protesters marched in Sydney on Saturday against Church teachings on sexual morality, trying to hand out condoms to pilgrims.

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