Pope appoints bishop to investigate sex scandal

POPE JOHN PAUL, reacting unusually swiftly to a sex and child pornography scandal that has rocked the Austrian Catholic Church, named a special investigator yesterday to probe the affair.

A brief statement said the Pope had named Bishop Klaus Kung of the Austrian city of Feldkirch to look into the problems of the Austrian diocese of St Poelten and “in particular” a seminary at the centre of the scandal.

Predominantly Catholic Austria has been shocked by its worst clerical scandal in a decade, another blow for the Church, which has been shaken by a series of sexual abuse cases across the world.