Agence France Presse

WASHINGTON - A victim support group for some 9,000 Americans who say they were sexually abused by Catholic clergymen pressed Pope Benedict XVI Tuesday to take action to protect children from pedophile priests.

"We are looking for the holy father to hold the enablers and wrongdoers accountable," Barbara Blaine, head of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told reporters outside the papal nuncio in Washington ahead of Benedict's visit next week.

In January, SNAP sent a letter to the pope, calling on him to meet with victims of predator priests when he visits Washington and New York from April 15-20, "to assist in the unfinished healing that needs to occur," said Blaine.

"We are extremely disappointed that we didn't hear back. We believe the pope will meet with victims, but those victims will have been hand-picked by US bishops," Blaine said, accusing the bishops of protecting predator priests.

"Across the United States, we know that thousands of predator priests have been named... we know that tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of children have been abused by predator priests," said Blaine, who was herself sexually molested by a priest when she was 12.

"We assume that hundreds of bishops either covered up for predators or turned a blind eye when they had information about predators. Not one of those bishops has faced any punishment.

"When a predator is enabled and empowered, those who give him that power are equally culpable and we would like the Holy Father to take action to hold them accountable," she said.

The US church was plunged into the worst crisis in its 200-year history in 2002 when the Archbishop of Boston confessed he had protected a priest who had sexually abused young members of his church.

Last year, the church paid out $615 million (400 million euros) to settle child sex abuse cases involving members of the clergy, or 54 percent more than the previous year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said.

Benedict XVI, the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, is expected to address the sex abuse scandal during his visit, but will not make it a focal point of his trip, church insiders have said.