Diocese of St. Pölten

Diocese of St. Pölten
Basic data
Country	Austria
Ecclesiastical province	Vienna
Metropolitan bishopric	Archdiocese of Vienna
Diocesan bishop	Alois Schwarz
Auxiliary bishop	Anton Leichtfried
Emeritus diocesan bishop	Klaus Küng
founding	1785
surface	10,450 km²
Dean's offices	20 (2014 / AP2015 )
Parishes	422 (May 2014)
Residents	621.100 (2014 / AP2015 )
Catholics	516.765 (2014 / AP2015 )
proportion of	83.2%
Diocesan priest	276 (2014 / AP2015 )
Religious priest	222 (2014 / AP2015 )
Catholics per priest	1,038
Permanent deacons	88 (2014 / AP2015 )
Friars	269 (2014 / AP2015 )
Religious sisters	158 (2014 / AP2015 )
rite	Roman rite
Liturgical language	German
cathedral	St. Pölten Cathedral
address	Domplatz 1 3100 St. Pölten
Website	www.dsp.at
Ecclesiastical province

Development of membership numbers

The diocese of St. Pölten ( Latin : Dioecesis Sancti Hippolyti ) has been an Austrian Roman Catholic diocese with its seat in St. Pölten since 1784/85 . It belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Vienna and includes western Lower Austria , i.e. Waldviertel and Mostviertel .

The Cathedral of St. Pölten

history

Emperor Joseph II forced the diocese of Passau to renounce its parishes in Lower Austria with a contract dated August 4, 1784 and founded the diocese of St. Pölten. With a bull dated January 28, 1785, Pope Pius VI voted . to. Since 1785 the buildings of the Augustinian canon, who had been abolished shortly before, have served as the bishop's seat - Sankt Pölten Abbey . The first bishop was Johann Heinrich von Kerens until 1792 .

At the request of Pope John Paul II , Bishop Kurt Krenn , who had been in office since 1991, resigned in October 2004 . Klaus Küng was appointed as his successor . In 2018 Pope Francis appointed the previous bishop of Gurk-Klagenfurt , Alois Schwarz , as Küng's successor.

Seminary

On July 21, 2004, Bishop Klaus Küng, at that time still Bishop of Feldkirch, was appointed Apostolic Visitator by the Pope in order to investigate events in the St. Pölten seminary that led to legal homosexual acts by seminary regents Wolfgang F. Rothe and Ulrich Küchl with seminarians and the discovery of child pornography on computers in the seminar. The owner of the child pornography, candidate Piotr Zarlinski, was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence. In 2019 Rothe Küng accused him of attempted sexual assault against himself in 2004, prior to which Küng had given him a sedative. Küng rejected the allegations and stated that he reserved the right to take legal action against untruthful allegations. The criminal investigations against Küng were discontinued in 2019 due to the statute of limitations.

See also

• Hippolytus of Rome
• Dean's offices of the diocese of St. Pölten
• List of the bishops of St. Pölten
• Philosophical-Theological University of St. Pölten
• St. Hippolyt Education Center and St. Benedikt Seitenstetten Education Center
• Austrian Bishops' Conference

literature

• Friedrich Schragl : History of the Diocese of St. Pölten . Lower Austria. Pressehaus, St. Pölten 1985, ISBN 3-85326-737-8 .

Web links

Commons : Roman Catholic Diocese of Sankt Pölten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the Diocese of St. Pölten
• Homepage of the cathedral parish of St. Pölten
• Public Relations Department
• Philosophical-Theological University of St. Pölten
• Entry for the Diocese of St. Pölten on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ sueddeutsche.de from September 30, 2004 ( Memento from September 17, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
2. ↑ Alois Schwarz becomes the new bishop of St. Pölten. Austrian Broadcasting on May 17, 2018
3. ↑ Church scandal : Götterdämmerung The sex affair in St. Pölten is expanding ( Memento from July 25, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ On this, the Süddeutsche Zeitung on July 16, 2004 : Thousands of porn photos were found on computers in the St. Pölten seminary, some of which are to be judged criminally because of child abuse; the managers of the house are documented in compromising scenes with their protégés.
5. ^ Andreas English : Benedict XVI .: The German Pope. Bertelsmann Verlag 2011. ISBN 3570100197
6. ^ Bishop Küng rejects allegations of sexual assault. ORF from January 25, 2020
7. ^ Bishop Küng rejects allegations of sexual assault. kath.net from January 26, 2020
8. ↑ Michaela Reibenwein: An "ominous evening": allegations against former Bishop Küng. Courier from January 25, 2020
9. ^ Allegations of abuse against former Bishop Küng, who denied it. The standard of January 26, 2020