Day of Repent for Sexual Abuse at Vienna Cathedral

An Austrian Independent report, published 31 March 2010, on Vienna Archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn's announcement that the Austrian Catholic Church was establishing an independent commission, chaired by former Styria governor Waltraud Klasnic, to investigate abuse allegations and negotiate compensation with victims. The article records the first year's own tally from the church's ombudsman offices: 566 abuse allegations across Austria in 2010, 174 of them in the Vienna archdiocese alone, about 27 percent sexual abuse and 26 percent violence, more than half already beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution. It also records criticism of Klasnic's independence from a parish priest, who said he would have preferred "an objective atheist," and a Social Democratic spokesman who called the nomination unacceptable.