He staged their recent Nutcracker and was preparing their Swan Lake at their headquarters in Taynuilt, where he died. He was also writing two books: a monograph on the Bournonville ballet La Sylphide and a biography of Marie Rambert. As multi-linguists, he and Rambert had felt a great affinity and liking. But then it was easy to like Alexander Bennett for many reasons, as his dancers could attest, not least his kindness and selfless concern for others.Nadine MeisnerAlexander Bennett, dancer, and ballet master and director: born Edinburgh 27 July 1929; died Taynuilt, Argyll 15 February 2003.. It was perhaps the lowest point in the history of the Catholic Church in Austria since the Second World War. "As bishop of this diocese," Cardinal Christoph Sch?rn of Vienna declared in February 1998, "I apologise for everything by which my predecessor, and other church dignitaries, have wronged people entrusted to them." It was perhaps the lowest point in the history of the Catholic Church in Austria since the Second World War. Ironically, Groer's misconduct might never have been made public.

He offered his retirement to the Pope as prescribed by canon law in 1994 when he reached the age of 75, but the Pope asked him to stay on.The trigger for Groer's downfall was a remark he made in February 1995 that child molesters would not enter the kingdom of God. The following month a former student accused Groer of sexually abusing him in a shower at a Catholic boys' school in Hollabrunn 20 years earlier. This opened the floodgates for many other victims – students and monks – to come forward as the scandal broke. It emerged that one monk had warned his Benedictine superiors in 1985 about Groer's conduct.The campaigning journalist Hubertus Czernin, who published a book on the case, Das Buch Groer, in 1998, said he believed that Groer had abused more than 2,000 young men. "His sexual harassment began in the 1950s, continued in the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties and even in the Nineties," Czernin said later.

"The last case I know of was in 1996, when he was an old man and had already been kicked out as Archbishop of Vienna but had returned to his monastery in Lower Austria."The consequences were devastating for the Austrian Catholic Church, which up till then had commanded the loyalty of 90 per cent of the population. Catholics left the Church in droves and a new movement, "We Are Church", was launched, aiming to increase consultation with lay people, end priestly celibacy and open up ordination to women.Hans Groer was born in 1919 to Sudeten German parents, but in 1929 the family moved back to Czechoslovakia and he studied in Brno Groer maintained Czechoslovak citizenship until 1939. He then moved to Austria and entered the seminary in Hollabrunn near Vienna. In 1942 he was ordained priest.From 1946 to 1952 he was prefect at the Minor Seminary in Hollabrunn. He had a devotion to the Virgin Mary as a young boy and spent 22 years until 1974 restoring the tradition of pilgrimages to the Shrine of Our Lady of Roggendorf in Austria. In 1970 he became spiritual director of the Legion of Mary in Austria and four years later joined the Benedictine community at Maria Roggendorf, becoming a monk in 1980 and taking the name Hermann.Chosen by John Paul as surprise successor to the widely respected Franz K? as Archbishop of Vienna, Groer was consecrated bishop in September 1986, less than a year after the first complaint was lodged against him.