MICHIGAN
MLive

By Rosemary Parker | rparker3@mlive.com
on January 19, 2016

BATTLE CREEK, MI — A pastor was sick. Another priest was available.

When Archbishop John Nienstedt celebrated three Masses at St. Philip Catholic Church this weekend, he was merely helping out his old friend Fr. John Fleckenstein, who is ill. He plans to continue to help as needed for about a six months.

In the eyes of the Diocese of Kalamazoo, it’s just a matter of old friends who made an arrangement between themselves in a way that does not violate any rule of the Diocese, a spokesperson said.

Nienstedt may have passed muster with church leaders. But many parents, community members and former victims of sexual abuse are angered by the arrival of the archbishop who is embroiled in one of the ugliest clergy sex scandals in the country, at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and…