MINNESOTA
Crux
By Crux Staff
May 5, 2016
Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis, who resigned in June 2015 amid controversy over his handling of sexual abuse allegations, now has been accused of failing to act when a member of his own extended family was molested by a fellow priest.
The charge comes in a May 4 report from a local television station in the Twin Cities, Fox9, and is based on an interview with the alleged victim, Mike Hinske, whose mother is a former Dominican nun and Nienstedt’s cousin.
According to Hinske, the molestation occurred in 1974, when Nienstedt was a newly ordained priest and a frequent guest at the Hinske family home in Michigan. One of the friends Nienstedt brought along was a fellow priest named Father Samuel Ritchey, introducing him to Hinske, who was 16 at the time.
Hinske told a reporter that Ritchey once asked him to give him a ride to a retreat, then invited the teenager to his room and turned off the lights. He described Ritchey removing his clothing, and said, “He did molest me, without a shadow of a doubt.”
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