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	Cops Block Vatican March By Natalie Sherman Boston Herald November 1, 2010 http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20101101cops_block_vatican_march/ Two Massachusetts survivors of clergy sex abuse led fellow victims in a march toward the heart of the Vatican yesterday but were blocked from reaching St. Peter's Square by Italian paramilitary police Two people of the throng of about 100 protesters— which included 55 Italians from a notorious Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona, where dozens of students say they were abused by priests — were later permitted to leave letters and a dozen stones near the obelisk in St. Peter's Square to mark a symbolic path so other survivors might know they have company in their suffering. "This is the first time that a group of survivors this large has come together, and people have listened in Italy. In Italy! That's success to me," organizer Gary Bergeron, a former Lowell resident, told The Associated Press after the march. Bergeron, who spoke out during the 2002 clerical abuse scandal in Boston and is a leader of the group Survivor's Voice, planned the march with Bernie McDaid of Peabody after revelations of clergy sex abuse worldwide surfaced earlier this year. The two Massachusetts men have said they were abused by the same Lowell priest starting in the sixth grade. McDaid was the first victim to meet with Pope Benedict XVI when the pontiff visited the United States in 2008. They are seeking to have the United Nations designate systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity. Local advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse said they were skeptical the protest will yield results. "I hope they did well today but I'm not surprised if they didn't," said Ann Hagan Webb, a local co-director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "I don't expect the pope to be doing very much." "I just personally feel a kind of hopelessness in asking priests to do this," said Terry McKiernan, the president of BishopAccount ability.org. Bergeron and McDaid tried to stage the march into St. Peter's Square but were forced to hold it nearby after the Holy See denied permission. It is standard Vatican practice to ban non-Vatican-sponsored events from the square. Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, who met with Bergeron and some of the protesters after the march, initially left the scene after being greeted with cries of "Shame! Shame!" "Of course, we must continue to do more. And your cry today is an encouragement to do more," he said in a statement he had planned to read. "But a large part of the church is already on the good path. The major part of the crimes belongs to times bygone. Today's reality and that of tomorrow are more beckoning. Let us help one another to journey together in the right direction."
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