In response to my posting yesterday about the mess that is the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis under the pastoral leadership of Archbishop John Nienstedt, Chris Morley writes (one of the good birdcage droppings),
Compare and Contrast:
Misspend $43 million on your Bishop's palace, get summonsed to Rome and then suspended by the Pope, pending further investigations (Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany).
Transfer a suspected paedophile priest despite being warned about the risks of further abuse which then happens, and repeatedly fail to follow the Vatican's child abuse guidelines under Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, and the U.S. bishops' conference's Essential Norms, and diocesan policies: no USCCB or Vatican action (Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis).
In a press release today, Barbara Blaine, outreach director of SNAP, makes the same point. As she also notes, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, who was convicted in criminal charges in 2012 of withholding evidence--hundreds of sexual photos of little girls--from police continues to sit on his episcopal throne.
For anyone longing for substantive and thoroughgoing reform of the Catholic church, something's wrong with this picture. Isn't it?
