BOSTON (AP) – Cardinal Sean O’Malley is hoping for a special guest next year to help the city celebrate the bicentennial of the Boston Archdiocese: Pope Benedict XVI.

O’Malley said he’s invited the pope to visit the heavily Catholic city next year. The pope is already planning to make a trip to the United Nations in New York and O’Malley hopes he can stop in Boston during the same trip.

There’s another reason why O’Malley hopes to persuade the leader of the Catholic Church to visit Boston.

O’Malley said an appearance by the pope could help heal some of the lingering wounds for the city at the heart of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

“Given everything Boston has been through, having the Holy Father come, I think, would be a great joy and a sense of affirmation to us as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of our church,” O’Malley told the Boston Sunday Globe.

The last – and only – time a pope has visited Boston was in 1979 when Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass for more than 400,000 people in the pouring rain on Boston Common.

Boston is the fourth largest diocese in the country with an estimated 2 million Catholics.

The Vatican has confirmed plans by the pope to visit the United Nations in 2008, but hasn’t set a date for the trip. Demand for the pope is great, with other areas in the country and Canada requesting he make a visit.

Visiting Boston could bring both opportunities and perils for the pope.

In 2002 the clergy sexual abuse scandal first came to light in Boston, forcing the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law after hundreds of people came forward and said they had been sexually abused by priests when they were children.

The Boston Archdiocese has been struggling to fix its reputation and finances ever since.

“If Benedict decides one thing he wants to do it to give a gesture of pastoral sensitivity with regard to the crisis, the obvious best place to go would be Boston,” said John L. Allen, a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and author of “The Rise of Benedict XVI.”

“On the other hand, there would be some voices among the American bishops and at the Vatican, who would be concerned about putting the pope in a hornet’s nest,” he added.