TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
BY DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
It was only after two decades of frustration battling the Catholic Church on behalf of victims of clerical sexual abuse, Barbara Blaine said, that she and SNAP decided to take their case to “a court of last resort”: the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands.
Ms. Blaine, a Toledo native and lawyer who is founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, explained the reasoning behind the filing in a panel discussion Monday at the University of Toledo College of Law.
Ultimately, the filing’s goals are to prevent more children from being sexually abused by priests and to encourage victims of abuse to step forward and be counted, Ms. Blaine said. After SNAP filed with the court in September, more than 600 people from 65 nations have contacted the victims-advocacy group saying they were abused by priests, she said.
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