MICHIGAN
The Daily Beast
KATIE ZAVADSKI
An archbishop accused of covering up a major sex-abuse scandal is moving to a new church—and local residents are not pleased.
A battle is brewing in Battle Creek, Michigan, where residents are less than pleased that an archbishop accused of covering up a sex-abuse scandal has now embraced a second calling as a pastor in their town.
John Clayton Nienstedt served as the Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis for 7 years but resigned this June, shortly after a prosecutor announced criminal charges and a civil suit against the archdiocese for allegedly covering up child sex abuse. Now Nienstedt has taken up a new post in Michigan, filling in for a sick old friend at St. Philip’s Roman Catholic Church.
A spokesperson for the Kalamazoo diocese told local papers that the arrangement between the archbishop and Father John Fleckenstein, who is ill, is just a simple agreement between friends. But detractors worry that the archbishop’s controversial past is getting a free pass.
Jennifer Haselberger served as Chancellor for Canonical Affairs in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. She was also the person who revealed how the archdiocese allegedly hid sex-abuse allegations.
Haselberger finds it plausible that Nienstedt and Fleckenstein didn’t expect the blowback in Battle Creek.
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