THE HAGUE, The Netherlands — A support group for victims of clergy sex abuse filed a formal complaint with the International Criminal Court on Tuesday seeking an investigation of Pope Benedict XVI and three other Vatican officials on charges they committed crimes against humanity.

David Clohessy, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he believes it is the first time the ICC is being asked to pursue criminal charges against a Catholic pope. The international court’s jurisdiction names rape and sexual violence as crimes against humanity and it also provides for individual criminal liability for those with command or superior responsibility over those who directly commit such crimes.

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SNAP is being represented by attorneys from the New York-based human rights organization the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Barbara Blaine, a Toledo native and founder of SNAP, said the reason for pursuing criminal charges is to “prevent even one more child from being raped or sexually assaulted by a priest and we hope that victims around the world will know today that they are not alone and that it is safe to speak up and report their abuse.”

The 84-page complaint, submitted with 20,000 pages of police reports, policy papers, and court documents to support the allegations, states that Vatican officials “tolerate and enable the systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.”

Ms. Blaine, who founded SNAP in 1989, said in a phone interview Tuesday from The Hague that the ICC action is one more step in ongoing efforts to enact reforms in the Roman Catholic Church.

“We’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s just hard to figure out what we can do because we’ve tried so many things and of everything we’ve tried, nothing has succeeded to make church officials change their policies,” Ms. Blaine said.

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First Published September 13, 2011, 4:09 p.m.