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"It must be clear ... that being a real priest is incompatible with (sexual abuse) because priests are in the service of our the Lord," the pope said Saturday at a press conference held during his 20-hour flight to Sydney.

"It's essential for the church to reconcile, to prevent, to help and to see guilt in this problem," the 81-year-old pontiff was quoted assaying by Australia's ABC Radio.

The pope's words to travelling reporters are likely to comfort those calling on him to repeat in Australia the apology to sexual abuse victims he made during his April visit to the United States.

They will also provide solace to Cardinal George Pell, the leader of Australia's 5 million Catholics, who had expressed hope that an apology would be forthcoming during the pope's first visit to Australia.

Cardinal Pell said last week that an apology from the pope would be a "welcome contribution" at the World Youth Day celebrations that open officially on Tuesday.

More than 150,000 pilgrims are expected to be on the foreshore on Thursday when the pope when makes a grand entrance on the harbour. Up to 500,000 could be at the closing Sunday Mass that ends the pope's first visit to Australia.

World Youth Day, begun in Rome in 1986, is held somewhere in the world every three years. Cities bid for it, just as they do for an Olympics.

The NoToPope Coalition has promised to disrupt the celebration. It's an alliance between gays and lesbians who are angered by the church's teachings on sexuality and anarchists disturbed by new police powers rushed through to bolster security at an event costing the taxpayer over 100 million Australian dollars (94 million US dollars).

The NoToPope Coalition intends handing out condoms to pilgrims and marching with anti-Catholic slogans at World Youth Day venues.

World Youth Day draws in the Catholic Church's big guns: the Holy Father and 80 cardinals. But the key participants are young people from over 170 countries, many of whom have had to scrimp and save for years to get to Sydney.

They come looking to revitalize their faith and make sense of religious observance in the modern world.

"A lot of young people are looking around and seeing a world that is very fast and very materialistic and there is not a lot of time to contemplates pirituality," local pilgrim Alice Woolven said. "When you walk into the church, you leave the outside world behind. It's timeless."

Also timeless is the joy of youth.

German pilgrim Karl Von Furstenberg, in Sydney for his fourth World Youth Day, was over the moon about all the hymn singing, the dancing, the bible study and the companionship. He said it was "fantastic to be part of the living church."

"It's fantastic to be here," he said. "We are Germans and we have to come to Australia because the pope is a German."

The 81-year old pontiff arrives Sunday, but will keep out of the public eye until he boards his boat-a-cade and sweeps past the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge for his first meeting with a congregation of up to 150,000 young people.