Posted on 07/12/2004 10:26:32 AM PDT by Land of the Irish
Roman Catholic leaders in Austria called an emergency meeting today after officials discovered a vast cache of photos and videos allegedly depicting young priests having sex at a seminary.
About 40,000 photographs and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography, were downloaded on computers at the seminary in St Poelten, about 50 miles west of Vienna, the respected news magazine Profil reported.
Officials with the local diocese declined to comment but were meeting privately on the scandal, Austrian state television reported.
It said the seminarys director, the Rev Ulrich Kuechl, and his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, had resigned.
The Austrian Bishops Conference issued a statement today pledging a full and swift investigation.
Anything that has to do with homosexuality or pornography has no place at a seminary for priests, it said.
Church officials discovered the material on a computer at the seminary, Profil said. It published several images purportedly showing young priests and their instructors kissing and fondling each other and engaging in orgies and sex games.
The child porn came mostly from web sites based in Poland, the magazine said.
Bishop Kurt Krenn, a conservative churchman who oversees the St Poelten Diocese, told Austrian television he had seen photos of seminary leaders in sexual situations with students. Krenn, however, dismissed the photos as silly pranks that had nothing to do with homosexuality.
A group of St. Poelten Diocese officials planned to ask the Vatican to remove Krenn as bishop, Austrian radio reported.
Vatican spokesman Ciro Benedettini told the Austria Press Agency that the Holy See 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.
I wonder why the usual guy hasn't shown up on this thread to defend these special, gentle preists and seminarians? After all, the "chaste" gays make the best of priests.
That they were caught in the act must give the lavender liberal modernist heretics a sinking feeling.
Krenn added, "Let me state categorically that I am not homosexual, nor do we tolerate homosexuality within our ranks. I just enjoy having sex with other men. That doesn't make me gay."
LOL!
The million dollar question is, how on earth would you know that someone is "gay" but "chaste"?
Ol' BS just loves to attack His Holiness. Seems to be hung up on literary offerings. Sounds familiar.
Yep, all of the usual defenders of the indefensible are hiding out.
The 'chaste' sodomite excuse for admitting them into the seminaries, with the rejoinder, "besides who are they going to marry" is how the original apostates, communist infiltrators and masonists got the seeds of the homosexual destructors admitted into the seminaries beginning in the 1950's. The lavender mafia sprung from there and propogated and screened out any true Catholics who would be a threat to them, and thus only admitted or promoted its own afterwards.
The destruction they wreaked by "just being themselves" more than fulfilled the objectives of those who brought them into the priesthood for that exact same purpose.
Such an animal is nearly nonexistent. If a priest talks like your sister, he's a high-risk sexual liability that needs to be eliminated from the clergy yesterday.
The reason we've somehow come to believe that gays can be "chaste" is that leftist can perform the greatest of acrobatics with language. Stalin got the "workers" to unite around the hammer and sickle then proceeded to starve and murder them. The socialists here call those they seek to exploit "working Americans", as if the rest of us don't work.
In the church of Christ where it should be the most moral sanctuary on earth we have the most rampant sexual/criminal deviance found anywhere. Yet to want to cut the destructive cancer out is to be a hater or "intolerant".
Orwell said love = hate as God told us that good will be made to appear evil and visa versa. Exactly that is happening yet still we have Catholics with scales over their eyes who won't say or do anything about it. Further they'll become angry with those who do.
I am not mad at you. Who are you, and why should I be mad at you? I cannot remember a single post of yours that I have ever read.
Do you have a guilty conscience or something?
Broadsword: I have been what my son refers to as a "rabid" practicing Catholic all my life (51 years). Fortunate enough to be taught by some very loving nuns and don't have the horror stories you often hear. I have been a supporter of Vatican II most of my life, still recognizing that some things might have been a bit much, but overall, thinking it was a good thing. I mean, do you really think its bad that women aren't relegated to the back of the church with their heads covered? I like that the alter faces the people and that I can understand what is being said. Having said that, I too am concerned with the drastic downward spiral that can clearly be traced back to Vat II. I cry when I think of the sin in our church.
Expect, at some point, to be crucified.
Kerry supporter.
The Modern European Church at play. Yuck.
I don't recall women ever being asked to sit in the back of the Church. As for covering their heads, St. Paul said that a woman who doesn't cover her head in the presence of the Lord disgraces herself. Do you know more than St. Paul?
I'm a woman, and I never had to "stand at the back of the church with my head covered" prior to VatII. Women were active, nuns were active, married men were active. As for the head coverings, even in the late 50s, as women stopped wearing hats in the secular world (remember, prior to this, respectable women did not even go out on the street in a city or town without a hat), this was not a vital requirement. I even heard priests preach against silly things like women pinning dollar bills or Kleenex to their heads. In other words, a headcovering was a sign of respect if you could do it, but it was certainly not as important as going to Mass. Christians are not, after all, Muslims, to whom the external is vitally important.
There were problems with clericalism (that is, some of the clergy thought they were godlets - read J.F.Powers' stories for an accurate description), but I fail to see that this has changed in any way. Except perhaps now there are more people who believe they are clergy (most of the women, married men and nuns mentioned above).
Ummmm...just as a matter of history, there was a time when women did sit in the galleries. The REALLY old churches here have HUGE galleries for this purpose, but it was out of practice before my grandmother's time.
And the thing about the hats...I wish we'd go back to it. Talk about a great way to hide a bad hair day.
Officials seen kissing priests
From correspondents in Vienna
July 13, 2004
PICTURES of authorities at a seminary caressing and kissing student priests have been published by a magazine in a sex scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church in Austria.
The weekly Profil magazine said prosecutors had opened an investigation into the seminary and had found thousands of photographs on portable computers showing acts of pedophilia and bestiality, as well as numerous pornographic films.
Profil said the scandal at the Sankt Poelten seminary, about 80km west of Vienna, erupted after priests decided to put an end to years of silence about the activities there.
It said the seminary director, Ulrich Kuechl, resigned last week.
His deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, was quoted by the magazine as saying he would also resign, without admitting any guilt.
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