VIENNA, July 21, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On July 12, the Austrian news service, Profil, published a series of lurid photographs and a report of homosexual activity at Sankt Poelten seminary. The German language newspaper also reported 40,000 pornographic images having been downloaded onto seminary computers. The Austrian bishops’ conference has instigated an internal investigation, there have been demands that the bishop resign, and two seminary officials have already resigned. There is also a possibility of a criminal investigation since the scandal involves child pornography – illegal in Austria.
Seminary rector Ulrich Kuechl and vice-rector Wolfgang Rothe have stepped down while continuing to insist that they are innocent of any wrongdoing. Profil reports, with photographs as evidence, that the two had homosexual relations with seminarians using child pornography as stimulation. They have called the photographs, “open to interpretation.”
The bishop of the Sankt Poelten diocese, Kurt Kren has refused to consider stepping down even after the Austrian bishops conference has indicated that they will ask the Vatican to remove him. He has called the allegations groundless and the sex acts depicted, “harmless pranks having nothing to do with homosexuality”.
The Vatican has wasted no time in sending a representative to investigate the scandal. Appointed as an Apostolic Visitor, Bishop Klaus Kueng of Feldkirch, Austria, is a member of Opus Dei and is an faithful bishop who has spoken against the admittance of homosexuals to seminaries or the priesthood. Rome appoints an Apostolic Visitor when ‘grave irregularities’ arise in a situation that needs to be handled by outside intervention.
With regard to the ordination of homosexuals, in interviews with the press, Bishop Kueng has been candid about the church’s refusal to admit active homosexual men to the priesthood. He has expressed grave reservations about allowing men who are homosexually inclined but not sexually active into seminaries and said any such cases would be a “very rare exception” after a “very long examination”. Read further coverage from Crux News: https://www.cruxnews.com/rose/rose-16july04.html ph