A LETTER has been sent to the president by a Co Cork priest informing her that “vile, cruel and oppressive” bullying in Irish seminaries led to numerous suicide attempts by student priests.

A papal emissary shut down an Austrian seminary amid a child porn investigation, saying that past procedures for selecting students for the programme were inadequate.

A 27-year-old seminary student has been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography as an investigation widened into Austria’s worst church sex scandal in nearly a decade.