MINNESOTA
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
WHAT HE’S SAYING: Well, there you have it at the top of this posting. Archbishop Nienstedt’s full statement in response to the revelations contained in documents in last week’s settlement of the Curtis Wehmeyer case in St. Paul-Minneapolis can be found appended to this article by Marino Eccher in Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Nienstedt’s response:
I am a heterosexual man who has been celibate my entire life.
The screen shot at the head of the posting is the header from an article by Jean Hopfensperger in the Star Tribune.
WHAT HE’S ALSO SAYING:
John Nienstedt, the former archbishop of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul, said accusations of sexual misconduct against him were part of a false smear campaign in response to his opposition to gay marriage
~ Marino Eccher’s report in Twin Cities Pioneer Press again
And:
He called the allegations “a personal attack against me due to my unwavering stance on issues consistent with Catholic Church teaching, such as opposition to so-called same sex marriage,” and went on to say that he saw the allegations as retribution for decisions he made as a supervisor and leader of the archdiocese.
~ Laura Yuen and Peter Cox, MPR News
WHAT DOCUMENTS DISCLOSED IN LAST WEEKS’S SETTLEMENT REVEAL:
A July 2014 memo from the Rev. Daniel Griffith, who at the time was in charge of the archdiocese’s department focused on protecting children, accuses the apostolic nuncio — the Vatican’s representative to the United States — of ordering the investigation to end abruptly, without following up on all the leads investigators had uncovered.
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.