MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 27, 2014

Hundreds of pages of legal documents released Monday provide more evidence that Archbishop John Nienstedt gave false testimony about a Twin Cities priest who pleaded guilty in 1983 to sexually assaulting a child.

Nienstedt in April had claimed under oath that he first learned of the Rev. Gilbert Gustafson’s criminal conviction within the previous six months. The latest documents show the archbishop received yearly monitoring reports on Gustafson that mentioned the priest’s criminal conviction from 2009 to 2013.

The archdiocese’s attorney also told Nienstedt about the conviction in a 2008 memo. That year, the archdiocese allowed Gustafson to travel to Orlando, where the priest would be “in an area where there are often many children,” one archdiocesan official wrote, adding, “He prepares every time he is around kids but feels that the fascination is waning.”

Monday’s…