Austrian seminary shut down in gay sex probe

A papal emissary on Thursday shut down an Austrian seminary where authorities reported finding about 40,000 photos and numerous videos, including child pornography, on computers. Other photographs of seminary students kissing and fondling each other and their older religious instructors at the seminary also were found in the diocese of St. Poelten, about 50 miles west of Vienna. Some of the photos were published in Austrian media and triggered a public uproar that prompted Pope John Paul II to dispatch Bishop Klaus Kueng as an "apostolic visitor" to contain the scandal. "A new beginning is necessary," Kueng told reporters in remarks broadcast on state-run ORF television. "I am closing the seminary right away." Kueng said it appeared that "active homosexual relationships took shape" at the seminary, a revelation he found "very painful," the Austria Press Agency reported. The Vatican inspector had promised to do whatever it took to restore credibility to Austria's scandalized church. Prosecutors investigating the child pornography aspect of the case have charged a 27-year-old former seminary student from Poland with possessing and distributing illicit material, an offense punishable by up to two years in prison. Kueng said his investigation found that church leaders "paid too little attention to selection procedures" at the seminary. Two of the institution's 36 students have left the seminary this summer. Those who want to remain will have to undergo a fresh screening process, Kueng said. 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. Kueng, who heads the diocese in the southwestern Austrian province of Voralberg, said the decision to close the seminary had been made with the full knowledge of the Vatican and Krenn. This case was not the first time Austria has had a "papal visitor," which the Vatican appoints when it receives allegations of "grave irregularities" at an institution of a diocese. In 1998 an American Benedictine monk was sent to inspect a monastery at which an Austrian cardinal, Hans Hermann Groer, had been accused of sexually molesting young boys. The findings were never made public, but Groer later relinquished all his duties in the church and left Austria.