MINNESOTA
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
New Minnesota NPR Report on Cover-up in St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese: “Nienstedt Chose Not to Reveal the Cover-Up. Instead, He Contributed to It”
Not to be missed: Madeleine Baran’s stellar four-part series “Betrayed by Silence” published today at the website of Minnesota NPR. Baran does an outstanding job of showing how deep-seated the cover-up of clerical crimes against children is in the Catholic archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, despite repeated assertions of one archbishop after another that the archdiocese was exemplary in its handling of cases of molestation of minors by priests. Here’s an excerpt from the final chapter of the four-part series, speaking of the arrival of John Nienstedt in 2007 as archbishop:
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.
Nienstedt told a reporter that he would work to establish trust with priests, restructure the chancery and reduce the archdiocese’s debt.
But the archbishop would soon encounter a situation more troubling than financial debt. He had walked into an archdiocese that was nearly three decades into a cover-up of clergy sexual abuse.
Nienstedt would later claim that he was “blindsided” in the fall of 2013 by an MPR News investigation that showed top church leaders had covered up abuse for decades.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.