US victims of child abuse by priests have said the Catholic Church was "rubbing salt in an open wound" by allowing the cardinal they hold responsible to say a memorial mass for the Pope.
Cardinal Bernard Law was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002 over the abuse scandal. He was blamed by victims for allowing priests known to have sexually abused minors to be moved from parish to parish instead of being sacked.
"He is like the poster child for the sex abuse scandal," said Barbara Blaine who came to Rome to represent some 5,600 members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
She and a companion tried to hand out fliers and spoke to TV news crews, but were escorted off St. Peter's Square by police who said unauthorised interviews were not allowed within its boundaries.
Vatican security officials later escorted them into the church for the mass.
Blaine said Law was the "most complicit" senior Church figure in the scandal. "His image brings out all this hurt and pain and devastation," she said. "There are thousands of victims that might not have been abused had Law acted appropriately."
Law, who has not faced prosecution himself, resigned after court documents showed he and other leaders of the Boston church shuttled known paedophiles from parish to parish without informing worshippers.
In 2002 Law repeatedly apologised for his handling of abuse cases involving priests. The Archdiocese of Boston has since agreed to pay more than $86 million to settle legal claims filed by hundreds of people who said they were abused by priests.
Standing in front of St. Peter's Basilica, Blaine showed reporters a picture of herself as a 12-year-old child and another one of a priest who she said abused her for several years from that age, from 1969 to 1974.
Blaine said American Catholics and victims of abuse should be allowed to mourn Pope John Paul - whom she praised for saying there was no room in the Church for child abusers - without being reminded of the sex abuse scandal and their pain.
Even if protocol dictated Law should hold the mass, she said he should have accepted so as to avoid causing more pain.