AUSTRIA: Pope John Paul, reacting unusually swiftly to a sex and child pornography scandal that has shaken the Austrian Roman 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 diocese of St Poelten and "in particular" a seminary at the centre of the allegations.
The fresh scandal in predominantly Catholic Austria is another blow for the Roman Catholic Church after a series of shocking sexual abuse cases involving clergy across the world.
Vienna Archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said the Pope had acted quickly and called it an "extraordinary measure".
News that police had seized seminary computers to check for child pornography came out in May but the scandal erupted when news magazine Profil ran pictures last week of priests kissing and groping students studying for the priesthood.
The rapid Vatican response contrasted with its slow reaction to a big sex abuse scandal in the US Church in 2002 when months passed before any action was taken.
Austrian prosecutors charged a seminarian on Monday with downloading child pornography from the Internet and said he was not the only person at the seminary to have done so.
Prosecutors in St Poelten, west of Vienna, said they found child pornography on the seminary's main computer and on one owned by a 27-year-old seminarian from Poland, who could be jailed for up to two years if convicted.
The Vatican calls its investigators "apostolic visitors". But despite the genteel title, they are more like inquisitors, who report back to the Pope with recommendations for action.
Bishop Kung said he would start his investigation immediately and would "move ahead thoroughly and swiftly".
Bishop Kurt Krenn, who is responsible for the seminary, has refused calls to resign over the scandal.
The director of the seminary and his assistant, who appeared in the pictures published by Profil, have stepped down.
The Vienna archdiocese said in a statement that the investigator would also look into the conduct of Bishop Krenn's office and all diocese establishments.