Archbishop Nienstedt Says He Will Not Resign

By Jay Olstad
KARE
July 31, 2014

http://www.kare11.com/story/news/local/2014/07/31/archbishop-nienstedt-will-not-resign/13444395/

n a rare series of interviews, Archbishop John Nienstedt sat down with KARE 11 and other news outlets to answer questions about the growing concerns over his handling of clergy sex abuse.

For months, his critics have called for his resignation. Nienstedt said he's not going anywhere.

"We want people to know we are not just sitting here taking our licks. We've been working very, very hard and I have whole new team in place now," he said.

He said the church has made improvements, including beefing up monitoring programs for priests who have abused in the past. He also said church officials have reviewed 3,000 priest files and are implementing recommendations from an archdiocese task force.

Nienstedt took over as Archbishop in 2008 and one year later assigned Father Curtis Wehmeyer to be the pastor at Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.

He did this despite warnings by some church officials about Wehmeyer's past sexual behavior, including a time where he allegedly solicited young men for sex in a coffee shop. Nienstedt said the allegations did not involve young children.

"I think we're all entitled to make a mistake and to me, I think that was a mistake approaching those young men," he told KARE 11. "I thought he wasn't about to do that again."

But Wehmeyer did. He was convicted of sexually abusing two young boys in 2013. Although Nienstedt believes he made a mistake now, he doesn't feel it was a mistake back then. He called it a "judgment call".

"It wasn't a mistake at the time. I really thought we had vetted the situation," he said.

And what about Jennifer Haselberger? She is the former canon lawyer who blew the whistle on what she called a church cover-up.

"I don't want to get into a spitting contest with Jennifer. Jennifer was a good worker, she was very diligent. I wish she hadn't done what she did, but she felt it necessary to do that. And we're living with the consequences," he said.

They are consequences he hopes will make the church stronger.

"I'm very hopeful that we're going to get through this and be a stronger, better church because of it," he said.