VIENNA, Austria (AP):
AUSTRIANS DISGUSTED by the discovery of a large cache of child pornography at a seminary and allegations that a prominent priest molested youths are leaving the Roman Catholic church in significant numbers, church leaders said yesterday.
Applications to withdraw from parishes in the Archdiocese of Vienna were up 36 per cent in July and shot up another 40 per cent in August, the daily Die Presse reported, citing figures from Vienna City Hall. The Vienna archdiocese said 10,709 people had left as of August, 31.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Austria's top churchman, said he couldn't blame people for wanting out after a summer of scandal triggered by the discovery of up to 40,000 lurid images including child pornography on
computers at a seminary in the diocese of St. Poelten.
Earlier this month, a second scandal hit Austria's church when Catholic officials disclosed they were investigating one of the country's best-known priests after several people alleged he had sexually molested them when they were teenagers in the 1980s.
"We've had these unending icy rains the entire summer: more and more scandals, negative headlines, and from many people, cries of 'We've had enough!"' Schoenborn wrote in a commentary for this Sunday's edition of a Vienna church newspaper.
The cardinal appealed to Austrians to remain faithful to their local parishes, saying he was hopeful that the church would forge a new beginning after it puts the affairs behind it.
A CAST OF SHADOW ON THE CHURCH
Austria's scandals have dealt another blow to a church already stung by widespread allegations of priest abuse in the United States. Last year, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay US$85 million to settle lawsuits filed by more than 500 victims of clergy sex abuse a scandal Pope John Paul II acknowledged earlier this month has "cast a shadow" on his church.
In overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Austria, people are automatically registered as church members when they are baptised as infants. They must formally apply to the government to leave the church under guidelines established by Adolf Hitler during the country's World War II Nazi occupation.
Before they can leave, people must pay whatever state church taxes they may owe. In recent years, Austrians have cited their unhappiness with the church tax which is calculated as a percentage of income and averages about US$305-370 a year as their
primary reason for leaving the church.
The recent exodus of the
faithful comes just as the numbers of those abandoning the church were beginning to decline, said Erich Leitenberger, a spokesman for the Vienna archdiocese. Eight in 10 Austrians identify themselves as Catholic, though few in the nation of 8.1 million regularly attend Mass.
For the Catholic Church, "Every withdrawal is one too many," Leitenberger said.
The Vatican has appointed a special investigator, Austrian bishop Klaus Kueng, to look into the seminary porn find and report back to the Pope. Police are conducting a separate
criminal investigation.
Last month, Kueng shut down the seminary about 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Vienna, where trainee priests also had snapped photos of each other fondling and kissing one another and their older religious instructors.
Calls have mounted on the bishop who oversaw the
seminary, Kurt Krenn, to resign or be fired by the Vatican after his dismissive comments
characterising the scandal as nothing more than "childish pranks."
PRIEST UNDER INVESTIGATION
In another diocese in southwestern Austria, police and church officials have been
investigating a prominent priest, August Paterno, accused of molesting at least 10 youths two decades ago.
Paterno, well-known for his newspaper columns on spiritual life and a television series on religion he once hosted, has maintained his innocence. He retired last week.
Austria's church has been embroiled in scandal since 1998, when Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer was forced to relinquish all religious duties and seek exile in Germany amid allegations that he molested young boys at a monastery in the 1970s.
Krenn was criticised at the time for defending Groer and insisting the cardinal was innocent of the paedophilia charges. Groer died last year.
Many Austrian Catholics have accused the church of being slow to discipline those responsible for the recent scandals. Helmut Schueller, the Vienna archdiocese's ombudsman for victims of sexual abuse, conceded that people feel betrayed and that the church's credibility is at stake.
"The faithful have the right to expect those who are in positions of authority in the church to be controlled, and to know how they are controlled," he told
The Tablet, an independent Catholic magazine in Britain.
