MINNESOTA
Owatonna People’s Press
Jeffrey Jackson
Posted on Jun 19, 2015
The relief that washed over many Minnesotans — Roman Catholics and the rest — with Monday’s news that Archbishop John Nienstedt has resigned should not be mistaken for a sense that all is now well within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Rather, for some time, Nienstedt’s departure has been widely seen as a sad necessity. The Star Tribune Editorial Board has called it a requisite first step in a long effort to restore the reputation of the region’s largest religious organization— a reputation sullied by child molestation and an alleged cover-up so widespread that both criminal charges and a civil case were filed against the entire archdiocese in Ramsey County District Court on June 5.
Fairly or not, the 68-year-old Nienstedt became the face of those charges — a fact that, to his credit, he seemed to acknowledge in a statement announcing his resignation early Monday. He was stepping aside, he said, “to give the Archdiocese a new beginning amidst the many challenges we face.” Exiting with him is Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche, whose resignation statement said “the people of the archdiocese … need healing and hope. I was getting in the way of that, so I had to resign.”
At least temporarily, archdiocesan leadership will be in the hands of the Rev. Bernard Hebda, who will hold the title “apostolic administrator” in St. Paul, while continuing to function as coadjutor archbishop of Newark, New Jersey.
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