Gay seminary scandal rocks Austria
July 13, 2004 - 7:04AM
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Austria's Roman Catholic Church is launching an investigation into charges of homosexuality between priests and seminarians at a seminary outside Vienna.
A church panel in the Sankt Poelten diocese west of the capital agreed on the inquiry after the news magazine Profil published photographs showing leading clerics of the local seminary fondling and kissing student priests.
Profil said investigators had also found at least 40,000 mostly pornographic photographs at the seminary.
The director of the seminary and his assistant have both quit as details of the scandal emerged in recent days.
"The panel has decided to investigate this issue thoroughly, discuss and assess the results of this inquiry and draw the necessary conclusions from the result," a Church statement said.
Kurt Krenn, Sankt Poelten's controversial bishop, told Austria's ORF television he had seen a compromising photograph of the seminary director fondling another man over his clothes but said the scene had nothing to do with homosexuality.
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This and other shots concerned nothing more than "youthful pranks", said Krenn, who told his interviewer he did not plan to step down because of the scandal.
The Roman Catholic Church has been shaken by a series of sexual abuse scandals across the world. The abuse has cost the American Catholic Church millions of dollars in payments to victims and angered Catholics who held priests in high esteem.
The Church in traditionally Catholic Austria was rocked by a scandal in 1995 when Profil published charges that Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, the then head of the Catholic Church in the country, had sexually abused seminarians. The Vatican replaced him months later and he retired to a monastery.
Krenn, whose close ties to Pope John Paul led to a papal visit to his modest diocese in 1998, has regularly been criticised by lay Catholic groups as an arch-conservative.
The Austrian Bishops Conference said on Sunday the Church had "an urgent need to act" in view of the alleged scandal at the Sankt Poelten seminary.
Porn discovered at Austrian seminary
Roman Catholic diocese scandalized by cache of photosThe Associated Press
Updated: 6:24 p.m. ET July 12, 2004VIENNA, Austria - A vast cache of child pornography and photos of young priests having sex has been discovered at a Roman Catholic seminary, officials said Monday, leading politicians and church leaders to demand a criminal probe and the resignation of the bishop in charge.
Bishop Kurt Krenn, who oversees the diocese, refused to step down, however, dismissing the images as a “childish prank.”
Leaders of the Catholic diocese of St. Poelten where the seminary is located, about 50 miles west of Vienna, spent much of the day in an emergency meeting.
The seminary’s director, the Rev. Ulrich Kuechl, resigned along with his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, the diocese said after the meeting. It did not elaborate.
As many as 40,000 photos and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography, were found a year ago on computers at the seminary, the respected news magazine Profil reported.
It published several images purportedly showing young priests and their instructors kissing and fondling each other, and said others showed them engaging in orgies and sex games. The child porn came mostly from Web sites based in Poland, the magazine said.
‘Perverse situations’
Hannes Jarolim, a spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, urged the Interior Ministry on Monday to launch a criminal investigation. Public prosecutor Walter Nemec said police were examining the material, which he said showed seminarians “in perverse situations together with their superiors.”
The Austrian Bishops Conference issued a statement pledging a full and swift internal investigation.
“Anything that has to do with the practice of homosexuality or pornography has no place at a seminary for priests,” it said.
Krenn, a conservative churchman, told Austrian television he had seen photos of seminary leaders in sexual situations with students, but he described the images as part of an elaborate prank that “had nothing to do with homosexuality.”
Harsh reaction for bishop
His nonchalance drew swift and scathing reaction across the overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
“Collecting child pornography cannot be dismissed as a prank,” said Thomas Huber, a Green Party politician.
In the mid-1990s, Austria was stung by allegations that Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who died last year, had molested students at an all-male Catholic boarding school two decades earlier. The affair had prompted Groer to step down.
A group of St. Poelten Diocese officials planned to ask the Vatican to remove Krenn as bishop, Austrian radio reported Monday. Martin Walchhofer, who supervises the alpine country’s seminaries, said Krenn ultimately was responsible and “must answer before the church and before God for all of this.”
Asked whether he intended to resign, Krenn said bluntly: “No.”
The Vatican said it had no comment.
Krenn, 68, issued a statement calling the accusations groundless while conceding that he “may have made some wrong personnel decisions” at the seminary. Rothe, the former deputy seminary chief, was a legal adviser to the bishop.