An official with the Archdiocese of Vienna urged the Vatican on Wednesday to oust a Roman Catholic bishop in charge of a seminary where candidates for the priesthood hoarded child pornography and photos of themselves kissing and fondling each other.
The cleric, Bishop Kurt Krenn, dismissed the photos as part of a "schoolboy prank" and accused critics of exaggerating the case -- the worst church scandal in Austria since allegations of pedophilia brought down a cardinal nearly a decade ago.
Police examined hard drives on computers seized at the seminary in St. Poelten, 50 miles west of Vienna, as part of a child pornography investigation.
Officials said the discs contained some 40,000 photographs and numerous videos, including child pornography and photos of young seminarians kissing and fondling each other and their older instructors and engaging in sex games.
...Krenn, 68, refused to step down and rebuffed his critics.
In a nationally televised interview, he conceded overall responsibility for the seminary, but rebuked the national bishops conference for pressing for his resignation and insisted the furor was overblown.
"Although these things naturally fall into my competence, I had nothing to do with them," he said, calling the uproar "an exaggeration" and "a diocesan matter."
Krenn's spokesman, Michael Dinhobl, told the Austria Press Agency the bishop launched his own investigation Wednesday. The internal probe was an attempt "to examine the allegations ... in the light of church morals and canon law," Dinhobl said.
The Vatican, which condemns homosexuality, has refused to comment.
Many of the photos were taken by an unidentified 33-year-old Polish-born priest at the seminary who used a digital camera, according to authorities in the province of Lower Austria.
Daily Herald article
The cleric, Bishop Kurt Krenn, dismissed the photos as part of a "schoolboy prank" and accused critics of exaggerating the case -- the worst church scandal in Austria since allegations of pedophilia brought down a cardinal nearly a decade ago.
Police examined hard drives on computers seized at the seminary in St. Poelten, 50 miles west of Vienna, as part of a child pornography investigation.
Officials said the discs contained some 40,000 photographs and numerous videos, including child pornography and photos of young seminarians kissing and fondling each other and their older instructors and engaging in sex games.
...Krenn, 68, refused to step down and rebuffed his critics.
In a nationally televised interview, he conceded overall responsibility for the seminary, but rebuked the national bishops conference for pressing for his resignation and insisted the furor was overblown.
"Although these things naturally fall into my competence, I had nothing to do with them," he said, calling the uproar "an exaggeration" and "a diocesan matter."
Krenn's spokesman, Michael Dinhobl, told the Austria Press Agency the bishop launched his own investigation Wednesday. The internal probe was an attempt "to examine the allegations ... in the light of church morals and canon law," Dinhobl said.
The Vatican, which condemns homosexuality, has refused to comment.
Many of the photos were taken by an unidentified 33-year-old Polish-born priest at the seminary who used a digital camera, according to authorities in the province of Lower Austria.
Maybe the Vatican will ban digital cameras, like Rumsfiend did to solve the Abu Ghraib problem.
And, in Brazil...
More than 250 members of the Brazilian elite - politicians, judges, priests and businessmen among others - have been put on notice by an extraordinary national investigation into child sex rings.
The inquiry accuses 20 serving politicians, including a federal deputy, two state deputies and three city mayors. Thirty businessmen are implicated, as are five priests.
"Sexual exploitation in Brazil is a crime which has reached epidemic proportions," says federal deputy Maria do Rosario, the author of the parliamentary inquiry report.
Aljazeera article
The inquiry accuses 20 serving politicians, including a federal deputy, two state deputies and three city mayors. Thirty businessmen are implicated, as are five priests.
"Sexual exploitation in Brazil is a crime which has reached epidemic proportions," says federal deputy Maria do Rosario, the author of the parliamentary inquiry report.
The epidemic is certainly not limited to Brazil. Our own high ranking GOP's got an investigation shut down.
I wonder if they're still at it. Why wouldn't they be?
And the Boy King is speaking in terms of great hypocrisy, as usual:
Trafficking in human beings is high on the Bush administration's priority list, as the president himself emphasized during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last September. "There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable," he declared before the delegates.
We are genuinely "seized of the matter," to use the standard diplomatic parlance, and the reason is obvious: The more you learn about how the most innocent and vulnerable among us are savaged by these crimes, the more impossible it becomes to look the other way.
Register Guard article
We are genuinely "seized of the matter," to use the standard diplomatic parlance, and the reason is obvious: The more you learn about how the most innocent and vulnerable among us are savaged by these crimes, the more impossible it becomes to look the other way.
Unless the scene is Abu Ghraib or a GOP child sex ring.
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