A priest who had hundreds of child porn pictures and videos on his PC has got off with a suspended sentence.A court in Wiener Neustadt decided the 49-year-old parish priest from Lower Austria should receive a suspended eight-month sentence on Friday after around 400 under-aged pornography photographs and video clips were discovered on his computer in February.
Judges heard that the contents had been stored on the defendant’s computer since 2004.
The prohibited footage was found after the priest – who pleaded guilty – was tracked down after looking for sex in online chat rooms.
Officials did not name the town the priest had served in.
The reputation of the Austrian Catholic Church has suffered dramatically over the past few months as more than 700 people have come forward to report abuse by clergy.
A special commission is currently negotiating compensation payments and subsidised psychotherapy sessions for the victims.
More Austrians than ever in history are expected to leave the Catholic Church this year as 30,004 people quit their membership in the first three months of this year, up by 42 per cent compared to the same time span of 2009 when more people than ever quit.
Recent research revealed around six in ten Austrians think Pope Benedict XVI should resign following the sex abuse incidents across Europe were there a rule that enabled him to do so.
SIC: AI