41 thousand news articles in 24 hours: Interview w/Gary Bergeron re Reformation Day 2010 and Vatican meeting that followed.

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Next Events: Washington D.C. June 25, 2011; Rome, Italy, October 30, 2011

“Lombardi seemed uncomfortable during the whole meeting," said Gary Bergeron of Survivors Voice. "I think that fear surrounds this subject from both sides, a fear so real and so visceral that it's tough for people to sit down and just have a conversation about it. And I honestly think the only way that progress is going to be made is for those conversations to be had."

Bergeron said there were “41 thousand news articles in 24 hours" about the the Survivors Voice march in Rome last October that led to the meeting with Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman. Survivors Voice organized Reformation Day in St. Peter's Square to bring attention to hundreds of thousands of victims of pedophile Catholic priests worldwide who continue to seek justice. “Every major news outlet in every major country had an article about this event,” Bergeron added. “They told us this was the first time any event like this was being covered in Rome. The European press are much more aggressive than the U.S. press to begin with.”

City of Angels Blog interviewed Bergeron this week about the Reformation Day event, which will be repeated next year on the last Sunday in October, the 30th.

CofA: WILL YOU BE AT ST. PETER’S SQUARE IN 2011?

GB: Well, we're going to apply for the same permit and see where they put us.”

CofA: LOMBARDI SAID HE MET WITH YOU SPONTANEOUSLY AFTER THE EVENT, WAS IT SPONTANEOUS?

GB: When he issued his statement saying he was speaking for himself and not The Vatican, that set the tone for the meeting later. However, I don't know how quickly he could have been moved spontaneously when he had a one-page statement ready to go. My goal in that meeting was to get him to agree to a future meeting of substance.

CofA: DID LOMBARDI AGREE TO A “FUTURE MEETING OF SUBSTANCE”?

GB: He said he was not in a position to speak for The Vatican about that. At first during the meeting I let everyone else speak, and they all had their own peace they wanted to say. Then at the end I said, we're extending an olive branch, giving you an opportunity to address this at a humane level. If you can’t accept this offer, please pass it along to anyone who can. But know this, we were here in 2003 and extended the same invitation and it was denied. We're here again, and if it's not accepted this time, we'll be back. We're not going to go away and this issue isn't going to go away as long as you people don't engage in dialogue.

CofA: HOW DID YOU GET SO MUCH PRESS COVERAGE:

GB: Honestly we worked, four people, myself, Bernie McDaid, my brother Joe and a gentleman from Holland, for three or four months, we were on the phone, speaking to agencies, speaking to the press. It was all grass roots, the whole thing was funded by ourselves. We had a couple thousand dollars in donations, and we paid for the candles, the t-shirts.

There were probably two press releases that we paid a service to get out there, because of the time issue, where you pay a flat fee. There were two dozen reporters who spoke to us in 2003 who remembered us from 2003. They invited us to speak to the Foreign Press Association.

The press realized that all we were doing was trying to get a group of people from around the world to come together and stand up. Our only agenda was to tell the world this problem was here and it has to be addressed on a global level.

At the press conference on Sunday we addressed the crowd a few minutes, and then opened it up for others to speak.

In the U.S., Boston coverage was pretty good, the Globe, the Times. A lot of media picked up the A-P story.

We didn't expect it to go as well as it went.

We had 41 thousand articles within 24 hours

Every major news outlet in every major country had an article about this event.

CofA: WAS IT INTIMIDATING FOR YOU MEETING WITH LOMBARDI?

GB: You know what, I had faced my demons the last time I went to The Vatican, so none for me whatsoever, and honestly, I think they were the ones that felt intimidated. The chief of security said he had never seen that much press at The Vatican. But I think it was different for each person meeting with him, myself I knew that all he is is a spokesperson.

The only reason Lombardi met with us was because we had so much coverage there, I don't honestly believe he fears Survivors Voice any more than he fears City of Angels Blog. [YEAH?] What they fear is public pressure and that's the only reason change is going to happen.

That's why we're making this a global issue.

In Washington next June, we plan a survivors rally.

There are sixty million adult survivors of child abuse in the U.S. When people start looking at this outside of the Catholic context, and when people start looking at people as men and women as opposed to titles, I think that's the only way we're going to get progression here. Titles like priest, bishop and pope, these guys are men, men of power who abused their power. When we can look at them in that context, as opposed to titles.

I mean, we just had an election in this country, and not one congressman or politician that ran for office that even talked about what's been happening in the U.S. with child sex abuse over the last decade.

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A call for the statutes of limitations in child sex crimes to be eliminated nationwide
Washington D.C. June 25, 2011
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CofA: WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR WASHINGTON NEXT JUNE?

GB: We're going to introduce a call for the statutes of limitations on child sex crimes to be eliminated nationwide and ask each elected official to sign a pledge to speak about the issue of child sex abuse over the next year. Also it will be a day of empowerment for survivors, because your life changes when you stand up and say this happened. The people in Rome that never had that opportunity, I think we were able to make a difference in their lives.

We will be meeting the last Saturday in June, June 25th, 2011, in the National Mall. The logistics are going to different than the logistics in Rome, I think it's going to be much harder to organize an event in the U.S., to be honest. We've got the permitting process, we're going to need stage and sound equipment, we're going to need security.

CofA: TELL ME MORE ABOUT PRESS COVERAGE IN EUROPE

GB: Part of it I think is because Europe is where the U.S. was ten years ago, it's just starting to erupt over there. It was interesting for me that the coverage in the U.S. was weak compared to Europe. In Europe it was, the European press, they're much more aggressive than the U.S. press is to begin with. So we were overpowered by press when we were there.

CofA: WHAT DIFFERENCES ARE THERE BETWEEN THE PRESS THERE AND HERE?

GB: I think in Europe they were asking the same type of questions that the U.S. was asking almost a decade ago. We were, the coverage we got for Italy itself, it was the first time they had ever covered a survivor issue. The press told us this was the first time any event like this was being covered by Rome. That group that came from Verona, it was the first time they were able to address the press, so it was a big step for those guys. We ended up getting really good coverage in electronic and print.

CofA: WHY DO A REFORMATION EVENT AGAIN NEXT YEAR?

GB: I think the U.S. we continue to have an opportunity for a dialogue, that's part of the reason. And we continue to receive emails from people around the world asking: You've been through this before, what do we do.

It's not only about lawyers and litigation and money, it's about people, but the question we've been asking and was asked of us, is what's next.

When I first came out, I wasn’t going to talk to the press, but then I decided I was going to start speaking regardless of whether people want to hear it or not and I've been doing it now for ten years.

The best advice I've ever gotten from an attorney was when he asked if I wanted to speak to the press and I said no, because I didn't think I knew how. He said, you know what, if you talk from the heart, you're going to be heard.

CofA: SO NEXT YEAR IN ROME?

GB: The only way this issue is going to be resolved is through dialogue, by people sitting in a room and discussing it. People don't understand that, and our challenge is we've crossed aisles to speak to people on both sides. Advocates sometimes don't understand that, they don't want to talk to the other side. But no conflict in history has been resolved without people sitting down and talking.

Reagan and Gorbachev talked, they ended the arms race and the Berlin Wall came down. The only way this is going to be resolved is with people sitting together and talking.

CofA: [GIGGLING] I CAN JUST IMAGINE THE POPE ENTERING A MEETING, GOING TO THE COFFEE POT FIRST FOR A DONUT.

GB: The meeting we had with Cardinal Law, in 2003, that meeting started just like that: He walked in to the coffee pot and grabbed a cup of coffee and a donut, that's how the meeting started.

I met with a Birmingham victim who last week for the first time reached out, because now he wants to talk about this. After ten years of coverage in Boston and meetings, it was the first time he wanted to talk. The next day he sent an email that said he slept for the first time that night, and “I feel like I'm an inch taller today.” That's what Survivors Voice is about.

Link: Speech made by Bergeron at St. Peter's Square Oct. 2010.

Link: video coverage of event

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