UNITED STATES
Minnesota Public Radio
By Madeleine Baran · July 21, 2014
· CHAPTER FOUR OF FOUR ·
Bishop John Nienstedt was driving near Marshall, Minn., on April 2, 2007, when his phone rang with a call from the Vatican Embassy.
Cell phone reception was spotty, and it took nearly an hour to understand that Pope Benedict XVI had appointed him as the new archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He would take over in May 2008 when Archbishop Harry Flynn retired.
In the Twin Cities, reaction was mixed. Catholics had grown accustomed to the less doctrinaire approach of Flynn and his predecessor, Archbishop John Roach.
Nienstedt had built a reputation as the conservative bishop of New Ulm, Minn. He criticized parishioners who missed weekly Mass, spoke of Satan’s efforts to drive men away from the priesthood and warned that “homosexual inclination is a result of some psychological trauma” that occurs before the age of 3.
He saw himself as fighting for the souls of the faithful. “Believing in sin has become countercultural,” he wrote in 2005. “Oh, the reality of crime, violence, road rage, sexual promiscuity, infidelity and deceit are all around us.”
The new archbishop exuded self-control. At age 61, 6 feet tall, trim, with perfect posture, Nienstedt kept his black clerical outfit spotless and his short gray hair neatly trimmed. When he walked into a room, he expected everyone to stand.
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