The websites were described as being ‘questionable, undesirable, and potenitally threatening to IT security'(Picture: Getty Images)

Priests in Cologne have made ‘mass attempts to access porn’ on church computers.

Some 15 employees, including a high-ranking priest, tried to access websites, the the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reports.

Between the end of May 2022 to the end of June 2022, there were around ‘1,000 access attempts to pages that were blocked by a protective filter’.

The websites were described as being ‘questionable, undesirable, and potenitally threatening to IT security’.

Most of the suspicious activity concerned pornographic sites.

The list is only coming to light now because police suspected an employee of the archdiocese of owning child abuse material.

There are no indications the material viewed on the church computers was illegal.

But church officials have turned over the information to investigators.

Some 15 employees tried to access the sites (Picture: Getty Images)

The Archdiocese of Cologne told the Catholic News Agency the church monitors IT security, including ‘checking whether the firewalls reliably fend off attempts to access sites that pose a risk’.

Attempting to access pornography is not permitted under the labour agreement with the archdiocese in west Germany.

It is also considered a grave sin under Catholic teaching.

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Some 15 employees tried to access the sites.