The Defenestration of Poelten

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 21, 2005

The Tablet reports that the St. Poelten diocese is under new management, and not everyone is taking it well.

In St Pölten, meanwhile, Bishop Küng, who replaced Bishop Kurt Krenn last October, spoke at length with the former rector of the seminary, Fr Ulrich Küchl, and his assistant, Fr Wolfgang Rothe, about their future. Photographs of both priests fondling seminarians made world headlines last July. Bishop Küng told them before Christmas they should both retire to a religious house for six months to a year to consider their vocations and their future.

Fr Rothe was very upset to hear he would have to give up the various posts he still held in the diocese, and that night he fell off the balcony of his second-floor flat, having drunk a good deal of alcohol. He suffered concussion and a broken hand and now says he can remember nothing about that night.

Bishop Küng told The Tablet he was deeply shocked by Fr Rothe's fall from the balcony, and that he had still not been able to get a real insight into what had actually happened at the seminary. Neither Fr Küchl nor Fr Rothe were prepared to admit they were practising homosexuals, he said, adding that giving them time to think was the fairest solution.

The saddest thing at the St Pölten seminary, Bishop Küng said, was that the homosexual atmosphere there had put off heterosexual candidates.

Now ask youselves, if the Holy See and Bishop Küng had dealt with St. Poelten as we're told the Vatican plans to carry out its seminary visitation to the U.S. -- i.e., by asking the seminary authorities to fill out a questionnaire and paying a friendly call -- is there any reason to think Frs. Rothe and Küchl would not still be "forming the future" today?