The head of the Austrian Church has launched an attack of one of the most senior cardinals in the Vatican, saying that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, "deeply wronged" the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy when he dismissed media reports of the scandal. In a meeting with editors of the main Austrian daily newspapers last week, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, also said the Roman Curia was "urgently in need of reform", and that lasting gay relationships deserved respect. He reiterated his view that the Church needs to reconsider its position on re-married divorcees.

On Easter Day, Cardinal Sodano called the mounting reports of clerical sex abuse "petty gossip". This had "deeply wronged the victims", Cardinal Schonborn said, and he recalled that it was Cardinal Sodano who had prevented Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal, from investigating allegations of abuse made against Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, the previous Archbishop of Vienna, who resigned in disgrace in 1995.

Cardinal Schonborn said that Pope Benedict was "gently" working on reforming the Curia but he had the whole world on his desk, as the cardinal put it, and his way of working and his style of communication did not make it easy to advise him quickly from outside.

Cardinal Schonborn studied under Joseph Ratzinger at Regensburg University and is known to be close to him.

Questioned on the Church's attitude to homosexuals, the cardinal said: "We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships," adding: "A stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous."

The cardinal also said the Church needed to reconsider its view of re-married divorcees "as many people don't even marry at all any longer".