The Vatican's investigator dispatched to Austria to probe the seminary at the center of a sex scandal has ordered the local bishop not to speak to the media in a bid to halt the damage being done by the child porn inquiry.

Bishop Klaus Kueng, Pope John Paul II's own choice, is working at uncovering the truth and depth of the scandal that consumed the St Poelten earlier this month and which has been a staple of the Austrian media ever since photographs of clerics at seminary kissing and fondling student priests were published.

Bishop's comments inflaming situation

Local bishop Kurt Krenn has been adding fuel to the media fire through a number of rash statements, specifically one which caused outrage when the described the incidents in the photographs as pranks and a number of comments slamming Islam.

Bishop Krenn remains in his post despite calls form his congregation for him to resign after the director of the Roman Catholic priests' training college and his assistant quit in a storm of protest after news of the scandal became public.

Prosecutors had been investigating suspected child abuse at the seminary for several months but the allegations blew up into a national scandal when the magazine Profil ran pictures of seminary members groping each other. When Profil also reported that police had found up to 40,000 pornographic images, including scenes of sex with children and animals, calls mounted for the bishop's dismissal.

Kueng's mission is to build trust

The appointment of Bishop Kueng, of the Austrian city of Feldkirch, by the Pope followed a 27-year-old Polish student from the seminary being charged with the possession and distribution of child pornography. Prosecutor Walter Nemec said many of the photographs showed sex with minors and the suspect faced up to six months in jail if convicted.

Bishop Kueng said his purpose was to "create new trust" in the Church, which has been rocked by a series of scandals. "This business has done immense damage, not only to the diocese but much further afield," Bishop Kueng told Austrian media. He added that an inquiry would be held into two anonymous complaints of sexual harassment of minors targeting some priests at St. Poelten.

The scandal is the most sordid to hit the Catholic Church here since Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer was forced to resign from his Vienna archbishopric in 1995 over allegations he had molested young boys.