Pope orders probe of Austrian church sex scandal

Pope John Paul II appointed an Austrian bishop to investigate a scandal involving alleged sex acts and pornographic pictures at a Catholic seminary near Vienna.

In a statement, the Vatican said that Klaus Kueng, the bishop of Feldkirch, had been named as apostolic visitor -- the official term for a papal investigator -- "for the diocese of St Poelten and for the seminary of St Poelten in particular."

The appointment was announced one day after the local prosecutor, Walter Nemec, said a 27-year-old Polish student priest had been charged with possessing about 10,000 pornographic photographs on a computer, many of which showed minors.

Nemec said investigations against other seminarians at St Poelten whose computers were also seized were "suspended for lack of evidence" but that an inquiry would be opened into two anonymous complaints of sexual harrassment of minors targeting some priests at the seminary.