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	Group Files Request to Investigate the Pope By Beth Miller News Journal September 17, 2011 http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110915/NEWS01/109150348/Group-files-request-investigate-pope?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s A handful of demonstrators and survivors of clergy sexual abuse stood at the corner of Union Street and Delaware Avenue on Wednesday to support efforts to get the International Criminal Court to investigate high-level officials in the Catholic Church -- including Pope Benedict XVI -- for crimes against humanity. The request stems from the sex abuse scandal revealed nationally in 2002 and globally since then. The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington recently won court approval to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a $77.4 million settlement that resolves lawsuits from about 150 survivors in claims that date back more than 50 years. Judy Miller, leader of the Delaware chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), stood with half a dozen others, holding photographs of children who had been abused in years past. "We're standing in solidarity with survivors around the world," Miller said. "[Pope] Benedict could stop this right now. He could remove people involved in the cover-up. But all we get are hollow words of forgiveness, nothing connected to justice. " The investigation request, filed Monday at The Hague in The Netherlands by SNAP and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, names four primary defendants, including the Pope and three other Vatican officials, who the groups say bear the "greatest responsibility for ongoing, widespread and systematic sexual violence and cover up by church employees." Ray Donahue, a survivor and one of the plaintiffs against the Diocese of Wilmington, said he didn't know if the effort would make any difference. "But it's doing something for me," he said. "It's therapeutic. And I would love to see The Vatican under that pressure." The Diocese of Wilmington had no comment. Contact Beth Miller at 324-2784 or bmiller@delawareonline.com
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