UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
If the child abuse scandal is Pope Francis’ Achilles Heel, then Archbishop Niensted’s Minneapolis/St. Paul Archdiocese is the pressure point. Nine months have passed since Francis became Pope. He has not yet directly and convincingly either condemned this abuse and the clerics who enable it or offered a proposed solution to curtailing it.
Moreover, has Pope Francis ever really publicly criticized any bishop over child abuse, in Rome or when he was in Argentina? Indeed, as recently reported, the first compensation payments to Argentine priest abuse survivors were just made recently to victims of a priest convicted almost a decade ago, while Francis was the senior local Church leader, see:
Even Francis’ recent appointment as a US bishop of a cleric, who reportedly admitted under oath to destroying approximately 50 suspected abuser priests’ files, suggests that Francis may underestimate the seriousness of the abuse crisis.
[SNAP]
The rapidity with which Archbishop Nienstedt stepped aside after a single allegation of improper touching is surprising.
See:
This is especially surprising, since Kansas City’s Bishop Finn has continued to serve as bishop even after a criminal conviction relating to his failure to report timely a priest child pornographer.
Of course, Archbishop Nienstedt has also been a key leader of the anti-gay marriage crusade. As the US bishops gear up again to make this a key political “wedge issue” in their new efforts to help conservatives try to gain control of the US Senate in 10 months (and thereby help maintain a conservative US Supreme Court majority), Archbishop Nienstedt’s absence may be desirable for the hierarchy’s political purposes as well.
Archbishop Nienstedt’s sudden withdrawal surely suggests that more troubling revelations about other Minneapolis scandals could soon be coming. Depending on the police investigation results, this could possibly even include the establishment of a grand jury and even potential indictments.
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