Abuse survivors prevented from marching on Vatican

People from a dozen countries who as children were raped and molested by priests gathered yesterday in Rome for a candlelit march on the Vatican intended to let survivors know they're not alone.

At the culmination of the march, each victim placed a stone he or she had brought from home on to a pile - in the same way walkers leave piles of stones along mountain paths to show others that someone has been there before.

Wearing T-shirts that read "Enough!" in English, Italian and German, organisers demanded that the United Nations recognise the systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity.

When Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi came to speak to the organisers, a protester shouted, "Shame, shame" in Italian, and Fr Lombardi left, escorted by police. Officers had earlier blocked a boulevard leading to the Vatican to prevent the marchers from reaching it.

At a briefing before the march, participants stood up one by one to tell how their lives had been destroyed by the abuse they suffered as children. Many recounted years of drug and alcohol addiction and other psychological and emotional problems.

"For 50 years I thought I was the only person in the world that had been abused by a Catholic priest," said Sue Cox, 63, from Warwickshire. She clarified: "Raped by a Catholic priest, not abused, because what he did was rape me and rape is different.

"It's taken 50 years for me to find my voice. But now I've found it, I want to continue to speak on behalf of people who maybe aren't able to speak or have not yet been able to face the fear and the guilt and shame that survivors feel."

About 50 former students of a Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona, Italy, joined the protest.

Organisers Gary Bergeron and Bernie McDaid are both from Boston, Massachusetts. Mr McDaid became the first victim to meet Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff's trip to the United States in 2008.

Eight years after the abuse scandal erupted in their home city, however, Mr McDaid and Mr Bergeron say the Vatican has not taken sufficient responsibility, has not reached out to victims or put in place universal prevention programmes to ensure children are protected.

They formed a non-profit group, Survivor's Voice, as a way to bring together victims from around the world - a campaign that kicked into gear this year after the abuse scandal exploded anew on a global scale with revelations of thousands of victims in Europe and beyond, of bishops who covered up for paedophile priests and of Vatican officials who turned a blind eye to the crimes.

Ms Cox said she was raped in her bedroom when she was 13 by a priest who had been filling in for her parish priest and had been staying at her parents' home.Her mother discovered what had happened immediately but did nothing, and told Ms Cox to pray for the priest.

"I felt sacrificial," she said. "I wanted to die."

By 15 she was an alcoholic, by 17 she had entered into a violent marriage. By 30 she was clean, and now is confronting what she calls the final piece of her recovery - "the hardest bit" - speaking out about her abuse.