ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press
By Will Ashenmacher
washenmacher@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 11/09/2013
On Saturday, strong gusts of wind couldn’t whip away the message of the signs at a protest in front of Archbishop John Nienstedt’s personal residence: “Morally bankrupt.” “Again?” “Resign.”
About 150 people gathered on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul to ask that Nienstedt step down. The demonstration followed a tumultuous period for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in which it has been alleged that officials there concealed the sexual misconduct of priests.
“We should not have to stand here,” said Eric Fought, a first-year seminarian at St. John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minn. “Over the course of the past 10 years, we’ve been told that these mistakes have been corrected. They haven’t.
Many of those at the protest said they still consider themselves Catholic. They said they respect the religion itself but are angry with the archdiocese’s leadership for what they perceive as its impropriety.
“Why should we not just pray for healing and be nice to one another?” said Bob Beutel of St. Paul, co-chair of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform. “The answer is simple — wounds cannot heal until the knife is pulled out.”
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.