Clergy Scandal Needs More Healing, Less Legalese, St. Thomas Theologians Tell Nienstedt

By Madeleine Baran
Minnesota Public Radio
September 15, 2014

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/09/15/st-thomas-letter

A group of tenured theology professors at the University of St. Thomas sent a letter to embattled Archbishop John Nienstedt on Saturday urging him to "leave the legal talk to the lawyers" and reach out to lay people to repair the spiritual harm caused by the year-long clergy sex-abuse scandal.

"We believe that without such public steps the pastoral state of the archdiocese is not sustainable," they wrote. "The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis has had a distinguished place in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. The current crisis is a grave blot on that history. Legal action alone will not remove it."

The letter, signed by 12 of the private Catholic university's 21 tenured theology professors, does not call for Nienstedt's resignation. Instead, it asks him to change his approach to the crisis. The archbishop should turn his focus to reconciliation, outreach to the faithful and greater involvement of lay people, it said.

"The Archdiocese is in a spiritual crisis as well as a legal crisis," the professors wrote. "The resolution of the legal actions now underway will not undo the spiritual damage."

Massimo Faggioli, an assistant theology professor who signed the letter, told MPR News that in the last several months he has watched Nienstedt increasingly focus on legal battles while the faithful have grown disenchanted with their spiritual leader.

"It's not a step that we took lightly, but we believe that it was something that ... as Catholic theologians we were called to say," he said.

Faggioli called Nienstedt's approach "not sustainable." He emphasized that he was sharing his personal view and not speaking on behalf of the group.

"I noticed in the last few months especially the conversation in the diocese has been dominated by legal talk or by the understandable anxiety of having a better image," Faggioli said.

"My worry is that we will become delusional in the sense that we think that a legal solution to the crisis...will solve the big problem."