Aberrosexual Bishop Sent to Austrian Monastery to Clean Up

Klosterneuburg has been waiting for the election of a new provost and abbot for two years. In between, a papal delegate managed the cloister and was charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups. There are now doubts that the investigation really went properly on all points.

(Vienna) The Canadian news site LifeSiteNews raises serious allegations of homosexuality related to the investigations into sexual abuse in the Augustinian monastery in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. The allegations by Maike Hickson and editor-in-chief John Henry Westen concern how the monastery management dealt with the allegations of abuse, but also the Roman investigation of the same. Today 41 canons live in Klosterneuburg, which was founded in 1114. The Augustinian monastery is one of the richest monasteries in the world.

The allegations of abuse concern two former members of the house, one dismissed and the other deceased. The allegations of cover-up, however, concern the former provost of the monastery and the Roman delegate.

In 2017, reports of sexual abuse at the cloister had surfaced, sparking a major media frenzy. The monastery reacted confidently and seemed to be able to clear up all the allegations. But was that really the case? LifeSiteNews has since cast doubt on the account.

The Veix case

The allegations concerned Canon W. Veix, who in 1993 had put a 13-year-old altar boy under the influence of alcohol and sexually abused him. The abbey reacted immediately: WV was asked to leave the order. He agreed and left the monastery within six days. A canonical expulsion procedure would have taken a longer period of time. Rome was asked to dispense the vows and informed of the serious incident. "Until he left the cloister, which must be done by order from Rome, the monastery was obliged by canon law to support him and removed him from the monastery to an apartment in Vienna. This responsibility ended when he left in 1994,” the monastery announced in a 2017 a public press release.

The matter becomes controversial from this moment on. WV was ordained a priest in the Romanian diocese of Oradea (Oradea) in 1996 and then became active again in the German-speaking regions. Among other things, he received a parish in the Federal Republic of Germany, where he molested an even younger victim, which ultimately led to his laicization.

At the time of the incident in Klosterneuburg, Canon Bernhard Backovsky was master of novices. In 1995 he was elected the 66th provost and 17th Lateran abbot of the monastery. It was a post he held until 2020. From 2002 to 2017 Propst Backovsky was also Abbot General of the Austrian Congregation and from 2010 to 2016 Abbot Primate of the International Confederation of Augustinian Canons.

In 2017, the spokesman for the monastery publicly announced:

“The monastery knew nothing of his ordination by the bishop of Oradea. We were not contacted either. It should be noted that the novice master at the time and today's general abbot, provost Bernhard Backovsky, made no effort whatsoever to enable Mr. Veix to be ordained a priest in any way. If the Diocese of Oradea had asked Klosterneuburg Abbey, Mr. Veix would never have been ordained a priest. Neither the diocese of Basel nor the diocese of Würzburg made an inquiry in the monastery regarding Veix. Since the monastery knew just as little about this priestly ordination as it did about his employment in Basel and Würzburg, the monastery had no opportunity to warn the dioceses of Basel and Würzburg."

 WV reported the monastery to the ecclesiastical authority in Rome, which is the Congregation of Religious. At the request of the boy's mother, the boy's mother waived a complaint before secular jurisdiction "so as not to further incriminate her child and to prevent the abuse from becoming public knowledge. However, it should definitely be ensured that Mr. Veix is removed from the monastery, which was done within 6 days with all the consequences of canon law.”

LifeSiteNews accuses Provost Backovsky of having witnesses who testified that he actually helped WV get ordained a priest in Romania. The suspicion soon arose that VW could not have succeeded in being admitted to priestly ordination so quickly without support. If so, Backovsky would have been complicit if WV, endowed with the office and reputation of a priest, was able to abuse other boys. But why should the provost have done that? An eyewitness, according to LifeSiteNews, testified that WV once boasted to him that he had "Backovsky and his brother in his pocket". And he added that Provost Backovsky was "my reinsurance".

The Rohrig case

The second case weighs more heavily. It concerns the Canon P. Floridus Röhrig, who died in 2014 and was a church historian professor at the University of Vienna and one of the most prominent members of the abbey. As such, he has received numerous honors. "As a person and as a priest, however, he seems to have lived a very different life," according to LifeSiteNews. The Canadian news site was able to speak to one of his victims, PR [a pseudonym as the victim wishes to remain anonymous], who, aged just 13, had been “repeatedly subjected to the most severe sexual abuse. He and his older brother both stated that Dr. Floridus," according to LifeSiteNews.

The former novice of the monastery and today's pastor in Hamburg, Michael Imlau, became the key witness against P. Floridus Röhrig and Provost Backovsky. He himself became a victim of the progressive members of the cloister, as he says himself, and in order not to endanger their influence in the house, he was removed from the monastery.

Michael Imlau revealed in 2019 that Röhrig had a reputation for being "Lower Austria's biggest child molester" in the cloister. He himself, he told LifeSiteNews, had witnessed evening tales from Röhrig as he was drunk recounting "his strange adventures in London" - and Röhrig was often drunk in the evenings. An older canon, who wanted to protect others from Röhrig, yelled at him one day in front of other canons that he should stay away from a young canon: "You bastard, keep your disgusting hands off X!" The young man did not know what the invitation was Röhrigs to accompany him would entail. According to Imlau. None of the canons present would have defended Röhrig. According to Imlau, they were silent.

As a spiritual assistant, Röhrig was responsible for scouts in the region and, according to Imlau, regularly took the boys with him on “cultural trips”. Both PR and his brother testified that Rohrig took them to nudist beaches where he took pictures of the boys naked. According to Imlau, the drunk Röhrig once showed two of his confreres some of these photos.

According to Imlau, Provost Backovsky remained inactive in the Röhrig case, which is why he was able to continue his activities and die as a member of the community.

The Roman Inquiry

The incidents that became known prompted the Roman Congregation of Religious to send a papal delegate to Klosterneuburg, who took over the management of the cloister after the resignation of Provost Backovsky for health reasons and had the task of investigating the cases of sexual abuse and possible misconduct by Provost Backovsky in dealing with the allegations. There was an accusation of cover-up. The investigation was recently completed. Was it really? LifeSiteNews also expresses doubts about this.

Whether Provost Backovsky resigned voluntarily in May 2020 remains to be seen. He had headed the monastery for 25 years. In the summer of that year, however, the house was visited by the Vatican, which resulted in the appointment of a papal delegate. From this it becomes clear that there were things that needed to be dealt with.

In November 2020, the Vatican appointed Bishop Josef Clemens, former secretary to Pope Benedict XVI, as papal delegate for the monastery. He would be in charge of the investigation. To do this, he in turn commissioned an external expert.

What did the investigations of the papal delegate reveal? 

He established sexual misconduct by members and former members of the monastery and failures in preventing or subsequently processing cases of abuse on the part of the monastery management at the time. Therefore, the emeritus provost Bernhard Backovsky was given a canonical monitio ( admonition). The reasons for this admonition remained vaguely formulated. The identified “deficiencies” were not named. Nor was it said whether Rohrig was guilty. Rather, the old abbot was given space to apologize for his behavior.

Msgr. Clemens also stated that "the investigation, as recommended by the Holy See, is closed" and it is now important "to look to the future and to make a new beginning". Former provost Backovsky was ordered to stay away from the monastery "for a reasonable time" as a punishment. However, according to LifeSiteNews, he may already have returned to the cloister.

an incident

In November 2021 there was an incident that called into question the work of the papal delegate. On the feast of St. Leopold, the founder of the monastery, he quoted in the sermon from a scientific work about the Austrian Margrave Leopold III. the saint of the late Canon Röhrig, whose misconduct he had to investigate. He not only quoted Röhrig in the footnotes but also mentioned him by name in his sermon.

The waves grew rough and still haven't calmed down. Victims and their defenders saw themselves betrayed. You spoke of a "provocation" that opened up new wounds. Ironically, the "child molester no. 1 of the monastery", according to Johannes Heibel from a victim support association, was honored. How was Bishop Clemens able to put a perpetrator in the foreground?

Life SiteNews interviewed the bishop and now former papal delegate. Until the election of the 67th Provost and 18th Lateran Abbot, provost Maximilian Fürnsinn of Herzogenburg Abbey will be the administrator of Klosterneuburg Abbey.

Questioned by LifeSiteNews, Bishop Clemens admitted a lack of sensitivity, which he would have been better off avoiding. However, he defended his actions by quoting from a scientific work that was to be seen independently of the author's person. Proper citation and the corresponding reference are academic standards. Röhrig was only mentioned directly because Clemens used his translation of a Latin quotation. In no way can a justification for Röhrig's misconduct be read from this.

LifeSiteNews also asked Bischofs Clemens if Röhrig was found guilty, but received no real answer. The bishop referred to the procedure used.

Wasn't transparency part of the mission of the papal delegate? This impression was reinforced for LifeSiteNews when it learned on May 15 from Rev. Michael Imlau that he and another priest had met with Msgr. Clemens to lament the non-hearing of two key witnesses. However, the papal delegate declared the case closed. [Haughtily and legalistically]

The bishop made it clear to Pastor Imlau that at the time there was silence on the Röhrig case "to avert damage to the Church". That is legitimate, but today it is seen as an own goal since the Church urgently needs to deal with the sexual scandals, which according to the Polish professor and priest Dariusz Oko are above all the problem of a "homo-heresy".

Bishop Clemens indicated twice that now the suspicion of Pastor Imlau and Johannes Heibel is directed against himself that he had participated in a cover-up. "By not fully informing the public, he fits seamlessly into the ranks of the cover-up," Heibel is quoted as saying to LifeSiteNews.

Papal delegate under criticism

LifeSiteNews goes further, questioning Bishop Clement's appointment as papal delegate a speaking of a "controversial personal history." Clemens, a priest of the Bishop of Paderborn, received his doctorate in moral theology in 1983. He then served for twenty years as personal secretary to Joseph Ratzinger, then Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2003, Pope John Paul II appointed him, apparently at the suggestion of Cardinal Ratzinger, undersecretary of the Congregation of Religious, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and titular bishop of Segermes. Cardinal Ratzinger consecrated him as a bishop on January 6, 2004 in St. Peter's Basilica.

As Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the US, revealed to LifeSite, the usual Vatican scrutiny before appointment as a bishop raised strong suspicions that Clement was an active homosexual. Because of his duties at the time, he himself was involved in this review.
According to Archbishop Viganò, it was the then Apostolic Nuncio in the Federal Republic of Germany, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who informed him of these "strong suspicions" in an official capacity. According to Viganò, Cardinal Ratzinger was then warned against Clemens' homosexuality. He nevertheless supported the bishop's appointment of his former secretary.

Viganò's assessment of a possible appointment of Clemens as a bishop was therefore "negative". Clemens was nevertheless appointed and ordained bishop. In the past, when he became Pope Francis' prosecutor in connection with former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in the USA, the former Apostolic Nuncio had spoken of homosexual cliques in the church that would cover each other and ensure promotions.

LifeSiteNews also notes that, according to a "reliable source," Cardinal Ratzinger approached then-Archbishop Joachim Cardinal Meisner of Cologne to see if he would accept Clemens into his diocese. The exact context of this statement is unclear, since neither the time is mentioned nor is it said whether this request was intended instead of an appointment as a bishop or whether Clemens was to be chosen auxiliary bishop of Cologne.

According to LifeSiteNews, however, the answer from Cologne given by Cardinal Meisner is certain: "I can confirm," according to the anonymous source, "that Cardinal Meisner told us that he refused Ratzinger's request to accept Clemens in Cologne, namely with the words: 'No, because of homosexuality'. He [Meisner] also wanted to offer Clemens therapy, which he refused.”

LifeSiteNews also cites another source, this time Roman: "The fact that Josef Clemens was and is an active homosexual is well known among us here in Rome."

According to Archbishop Viganò, "there was quite a dispute between Gänswein and Clemens" when Cardinal Ratzinger elected today's Archbishop Georg Gänswein as his new secretary.

LifeSiteNews confronted Bishop Clemens with the statements, which he categorically rejected. Claims that he is a practicing homosexual are "an untruth". He has no knowledge of Archbishop Viganò's claims and his appeal to Cardinal Lajolo: 

"With these clear and unequivocal answers, I consider the matter closed."

Inquiries from LifeSiteNews to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Vatican Press Office and Cardinal Lajolo, now 87, went unanswered.

LifeSiteNews isn't very happy with the whole thing. They insinuate that the Vatican may have deliberately appointed a papal delegate who is himself "strongly suspected" of being an active homosexual, and concludes the report by saying:

“Is this how the Vatican is dealing with the plight of victims of sexual abuse in Klosterneuburg following assurances from Pope Francis that sexual abuse and the cover-up of sexual abuse are now being handled differently?”

 

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Wikicommons

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Bergoglio Wants Men of the West to Surrender

Edit: Of course, a south of the border type with militant Marxist attitudes, like Bergoglio, will disapprove of free men being armed, but this Pope is hardly disinterested. Rather than representing the Church founded by Jesus Christ, this evil man seems desirous to style himself as a kind of celebrity spiritual leader of the Globohomo with its schemes to destroy the West and enslave the human race. It’s a little hard to understand why a man, even an Ersatz Bishop, whose life is defended by men who carry guns, would want to deprive others of the right of self-defense.

Actually, if Bergoglio agrees to dismiss the Swiss Guards and forbid any security detail protecting him from carrying guns, he might be credible.

Rather than admitting this clear conflict of interest, Bergoglio adds his two cents in a conflict that is calculated to disadvantage free men in the United States. Why doesn’t he spend more time protecting victims or human trafficking in Mexico or the victims of abortion numbering in the millions and leading to an ever darker and more economically disadvantaged world. His indifference to the welfare of workers and the unborn isn’t all, he doesn’t care about the victims of priests and bishops he protects. 

Rather than protecting the law abiding people of Western countries from being swamped by lawless murderous immigrants, Bergoglio encourages their lawless rampage. So his school shooter, Salvador Ramos,  surely must be one of Bergoglio’s immigrants, no?   Allegedly, he was born in Fargo, North Dakota, but it’s very likely his parents and grandparents are themselves immigrants.

[Georgia Public Broadcasting] I am praying for the children and adults who were killed, and for their families," Pope Francis said in his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. 

The pope said it's time for new limits on the sale of guns. Pope Francis says that his heart is broken over the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, and that the U.S. must act to prevent the spread of guns. 

“I am praying for the children and adults who were killed, and for their families. It is time to say enough to the indiscriminate trafficking of arms," Francis said on Wednesday, during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. In the attack, 19 students and two adults died. The 18-year-old gunman, who lived in Uvalde, reportedly bought at least two semi-automatic rifles after his most recent birthday.

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“Zeit”: Bishop of Limburg Promotes Priest Despite Credible Accusations of Sexual Misconduct

A Protestant pastor in training and a Catholic community administrator in training have made sex abuse allegations that the diocese has already classified as “credible”: Bätzing spoke out against the priest “formally reprimanding” him but promoted him anyway

Limburg (kath.net) The Bishop of Limburg, Georg Bätzing, appointed the man he had warned of molesting two women as regional dean.  The diocese confirmed both the allegations against the man and his promotion.  This was reported by the "Zeit" and the "Spiegel".  Bätzing had given the man a "formal reprimand".  Two women have accused the priest of both verbally and sexually harassing them.  According to "Zeit", the priest verbally and physically sexually harassed a female Protestant pastor who was still in training in 2000, and the diocese considers the allegations to be credible.  Another female parish administrator, who was also still in training, is said to have molested this pastor around 2006/2007”.  The reports of both women are the "Zeit" before.

Nevertheless, this priest was promoted to regional  dean – even AFTER the bishop had issued a “formal reprimand”.  The "Spiegel" cites from the justification by the press office of the diocese of Limburg: "Also because it was not a matter of criminal behavior, the pastor had insight and remorse and he had apologized to the community administrator for his behavior, the bishop then appointed him to the office of regional dean.”

Bishop Bätzing has been the President of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference (DBK) since March 2020.

 Archive photo Bishop Bätzing (c) Diocese of Limburg

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Homily by Cardinal Gerhard Müller at the Eucharistic Adoration for Life

Two days before this year's March for Life in Rome, the Eucharistic Adoration for Life took place, at which Cardinal Gerhard Müller preached a homily.

On the occasion of the Eucharistic Adoration for Life, which takes place every year just before the anniversary of the passage of the infamous law 194 that allowed abortion in Italy on May 22, 1978, Cardinal Gerhard Müller presided over the solemn ceremony in the Roman parish of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. 

This year's March for Life in Rome took place on May 22nd. Cardinal Müller delivered a sermon which we reproduce below:

Recently, the Holy Father has pointed out the drastic demographic decline that threatens the future of Europe and America, and it is not just a question of mere utilitarian thinking so that business and government can continue with future consumers, customers and taxpayers. The reason for this question is theological in nature:

“Man is the only creature that God willed for himself” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes , 24), for every human being is predestined by God (as far as his present existence on earth is concerned) “in beings and form of his Son, that he may be the firstborn of many brethren" (Romans 8:29).

Every human being is embraced by God's salvific will from the moment of conception to the moment of his last breath. Therefore, any act of injustice against the life and integrity of another human being, especially the killing of a child in the womb (or even in the test tube [in vitro] or incubator) is a “despicable crime” ( Gaudium et Spes, 51). For life is sacred and protected by God Himself, as the fifth commandment of the Decalogue states: 

"Thou shalt not kill" (Deut 5:17).

The legal order in all societies and states is aimed at human coexistence on the basis of morality; Morality means directing our actions towards good, based on the recognition of the fundamental dignity and rights of human beings, inherent in their nature and guaranteed by God. As human beings and Christians, we are convinced that the real (and not just abstractly theorized) physical man never exists as a purpose and instrument for something else or for the interests of others. This is the basis of our image of man and the criterion of all ethics.

On the other hand, the opposite of this is the starting point of all crimes against humanity and cynical contempt for human beings, with which Josef Stalin declared that Gulag prisoners only had a right to life because they were useful for the construction of the White Sea Canal. One Heinrich Himmler, commander of the notorious SS, said of his boss Hitler that he was "interested in the lives of a thousand Russian women only until they have dug an anti-tank trench for the Wehrmacht". And these are just two particularly drastic examples of the depths of human contempt in the political ideologies of a not too distant time. If one believes that there is overpopulation on our planet that consumes resources or negatively affects the climate, one cannot, however, propagate and justify the killing of life in the womb without revealing oneself as a diabolical misanthrope. Pope Francis, to whom some proponents of “reproductive health” (ie, abortion) invoke, says this in a very blunt way.

The materialists in power in the Western capitalist states and international organizations, as well as the communist dictators in China and its allied states, reject the doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God because they do not believe in God as believe our Creator and Judge. On the contrary, they claim to put themselves in the place of God and in their foolish arrogance are not even able to defeat the tiny coronavirus. Someone recently said: The oligarchs in Russia are mafiosi and in the West they call themselves philanthropists, so beware of those who pose as the saviors of humanity when they are only pursuing their own interests.

While the pandemic crisis and the measures taken to combat it have left millions of people in hardship and poverty, the world's ten richest people have simultaneously added hundreds of billions to their fortunes.

The dominant ideological current in politics, economy and communication thinks in a Darwinian-socialist perspective. This means that whoever asserts himself in the struggle for power, money and propaganda also has the law on his side, which is why only the powerful have the right to determine who is allowed to live and who must die based on their interests. They claim to determine which life is worth living and which life is not. Others even consider it a higher form of humanity to guarantee life only if born healthy, while it must be eliminated if born ill or in old age, in order to avoid present and future suffering. Or in the case of multiple pregnancies, only the child that the parents like according to their needs and preferences should survive; for example, China implemented the brutal and inhumane one-child policy for decades and forced women to kill their children. But whoever thinks in terms of the fundamental rights inscribed in man's spiritual and moral nature, or who invokes revelation in the Word of God as the ultimate criterion for man's image, can never find a just reason for killing an innocent human being.

We are in a “war against the saints” ( Rev 13:7), not only in the inhumane war against the Ukrainian people but also in the West, which is radically denying its Christian roots. Behind those responsible for all the suffering is “the beast that came up out of the earth', the epitome of wickedness and ungodliness unleashed by the life and death struggle of God's followers and against Christ the Lamb of God. Anyone who takes a pro-life position in Europe or America today is insulted, persecuted, discriminated against and marginalized. US Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion rights face death threats and their families' safety is threatened. Mobs fueled by the neo-Marxist media are burning Catholic churches in a country that prides itself on freedom of religion, expression and conscience. In Germany, as in all of Europe, where a campaign of annihilation against life, marriage and the family is underway,

In the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council addressed not only believers in Christ, but all people, as Magna Carta Pro Vita on the basis of inalienable human rights:

“Furthermore, which is contrary to life itself, like every kind of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and also voluntary suicide; whatever violates the sanctity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical or mental torture, and attempts at psychological coercion; whateverI offends human dignity, such as inhumane living conditions, arbitrary detention, deportation, slavery, prostitution, trafficking in women and young people, then also substandard working conditions in which the worker is treated as a mere means of subsistence and not as a free and responsible person: all these and other similar acts are in themselves a disgrace; they are a decomposition of human culture, degrade those who do wrong far more than those who suffer it. At the same time, they are supremely contrary to the Creator's honor” (Gaudium et Spes, 27).

In this hour of struggle for life and against death in the unborn, for the dignity of the seriously ill, but also for those at risk of suicide, if one wants to convince them that death (disguised as mercy) is their right, we Christians must remind them:

"Open your mouth for the sake of the mute, for the rights of all who are weak" (Proverbs 31:8).

 

Translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Corrispondenza Romana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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