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	Church Sex Abuse Victims Ask Vatican Employees to Speak out Voice of America September 20, 2011 http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/09/20/church-sex-abuse-victims-ask-vatican-employees-to-speak-out/ A human rights organization and a sex abuse victims' advocacy group have asked all past and present Vatican and church employees to speak out if they know about abuse of minors by the clergy. The Center for Constitutional Rights and the U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests held a joint news conference in Rome on Tuesday. They want the information to help prosecute Pope Benedict and other top officials of the Roman Catholic Church for crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court . Last week, SNAP filed a complaint with the court alleging that the church has maintained a “longstanding and pervasive system of sexual violence. The lawsuit charges high-level church officials with tolerating and enabling the systematic and widespread concealment of rape and child sex crimes. There is a question about whether the ICC has jurisdiction over the Vatican, in part because the Vatican has not ratified the ICC treaty and therefore does not recognize the court. Pope Benedict has expressed shame and sorrow over the clerical sex scandal and has called on bishops around the world to come up with common guidelines against pedophiles by May 2012. Reports of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy began surfacing about nine years ago in the United States and Europe. Victims say the church paid little attention to decades of priests' sexual and physical abuse of children and tried to protect the guilty. The church has paid millions of dollars to settle some of the claims of sexual abuse in the U.S. Roman Catholic officials have said the church is working with the proper authorities to investigate and prevent abuse.
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