Pope's emissary shuts down Austrian seminary

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.

Cardinal Klaus Kueng said he regrets that the seminary had veered away from its mission of training young men to serve the Roman Catholic Church. “I am closing the seminary right away,” he said.

The Vatican inspector had promised a “brisk investigation” into the discovery of child porn at a Roman Catholic seminary and pledged to do whatever it takes to restore faith and credibility to Austria’s scandalised church.

Authorities said they found about 40,000 photos and numerous videos, including child porn, on computers at the seminary in the diocese of St Poelten, 50 miles west of Vienna.

Other photographs of seminary students kissing and fondling each other and their older religious instructors at the seminary also have been found.

Some of the photos were published in Austrian media and triggered a public uproar that prompted Pope John Paul to dispatch Kueng as an “apostolic visitor” to contain the scandal.

Prosecutors investigating the child porn aspect of the case have charged a 27-year-old former seminary student from Poland with possessing and distributing illicit material.

Local Bishop Kurt Krenn, whose close ties to the Vatican led to a papal visit to his modest diocese in 1998, has refused to resign despite mounting pressure.

The Vatican appoints an apostolic visitor when it receives allegations of “grave irregularities” at an institution of a diocese.

This has occurred before in Austria. In 1998, an American Benedictine monk was sent on an inspection tour of a monastery where an Austrian cardinal, Hans Hermann Groer, was accused of sexually molesting young boys.

The American’s findings were never made public, but Groer later relinquished all his duties in the church and left Austria in exile.