Vienna - In an unprecedented move, Austria's highest-ranking bishops yesterday released a statement saying they believed that long-standing allegations of homosexuality against Vienna's former Archbishop, Dr Hans Hermann Groer, were "essentially correct".
The affair has rocked the solidly Catholic state. The statement comes two days before the arrival of "a holy mission" from the Vatican.
In 1995, Cardinal Groer, aged 78, was forced to give up his post when he was accused of abusing a student over 20 years earlier. --(Guardian Service)