SAINT PAUL (MN)
Star Tribune [Minneapolis MN]
January 5, 2024
By Erica Pearson
But the bishop, who resigned in 2015, will not be allowed to live or do church work in Minnesota, North Dakota or South Dakota.
Nearly nine years after Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned after charges of a sex abuse coverup, the Holy See in Rome concluded its investigation and determined that he did not commit a crime.
Even so, Pope Francis decided that because some of Nienstedt’s conduct was “imprudent,” the former archbishop cannot return to the church’s province of St. Paul and Minneapolis (which includes all of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota) to live or do church work.
“Though the evidence available did not support a finding that any conduct on the part of Archbishop Nienstedt could be judged as a delict, it was communicated to me that several instances of ‘imprudent’ actions were brought to light,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who took over for his predecessor in 2016, said in a statement Friday.
Hebda did not clarify what those “imprudent” actions were, but said the Holy See determined they did not, either individually or as a whole, “warrant any further investigation or penal sanctions.”
The Catholic church’s governing body at the Vatican investigates reports of priest and clergy misconduct around the world and decides whether they are a “delict,” or crime under canon law.
Nienstedt was archbishop in the Twin Cities during the clergy abuse scandal that began here in 2013, when new laws first allowed victims of abuse that happened years earlier to go to court. An estimated 500 people filed claims against priests in the archdiocese by 2016, and two years later the archdiocese settled with victims for $201 million.
In 2019, the archdiocese’s clergy abuse ombudsperson and a former Hennepin County Attorney, Tom Johnson, officially requested that the Vatican investigate Nienstedt.
The former archbishop failed to discipline former St. Paul priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who ended up pleading guilty to sexually abusing two boys and going to prison, Johnson’s complaint said. Nienstedt also misrepresented his relationship with Wehmeyer to county investigators, according to the complaint.
Johnson also cited allegations of Nienstedt’s own inappropriate conduct, including an incident at a World Youth Day event in Germany, where he allegedly invited two boys to his hotel room to get in from the rain and took off his wet clothes in front of them, asking them to do so as well.
Nienstedt, who lives in Michigan, according to the archdiocese, has denied the allegations. The pope’s new determination also bars him from doing church work outside the diocese where he lives without getting special permission and informing Rome.
Erica Pearson covers faith and spirituality for the Star Tribune. Before joining the Star Tribune, she spent more than a decade at the New York Daily News, where she was an assistant city desk editor.
erica.pearson@startribune.com 612-673-4726 ericalpearson