Antigay Minn. Archbishop Accused of Sexual Advances, Retaliation

An investigation of the former Roman Catholic archbishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul, noted for his antigay stances, has turned up allegations that he frequented gay bars and cruising area -- and made or carried out threats against men who rebuffed his advances.

The allegations came in affidavits from current and former priests and seminarians in an internal archdiocesan investigation of John Nienstedt, who resigned as archbishop last month, the Minneapolis Star Tribunereports. The investigation centers on charges that Nienstedt and other leaders of the archdiocese failed to take proper action against priests accused of sexually abusing minors. A separate investigation by prosecutors in Ramsey County, which includes St. Paul, has led to criminal charges against the archdiocese for failing to protect minors from abuse.

The results of the internal investigation, conducted by the law firm Greene Espel, have not been made public, but the Star Tribune obtained information from the investigation placing Nienstedt in gay bars and cruising areas and telling of actual or threatened retaliation from him. Previous reports on the investigation have revealed similar allegations. Nienstedt denies all the allegations, the paper reports.

A Michigan priest recalled seeing him in a gay bar in Windsor, Canada, just across the border from Detroit, in the 1980s. Nienstedt was a priest, seminary rector and president, and auxiliary bishop in the Detroit area before moving to Minnesota. Another reported encountering him in a Detroit park known as a gay cruising spot and said Nienstedt asked him for poppers; when Nienstedt "recognized him as a former student, he changed the subject," the Star Tribune reports.

An incident of alleged retaliation involves a man who said he was expelled from Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary, where Nienstedt was rector and president, after refusing to join Nienstedt and two other seminary students "on a private weekend at a ski chalet in the late 1980s," according to the paper. Another man said Nienstedt touched his buttocks after they had dinner together, and that when he objected, Nienstedt told him "he could 'make things unpleasant for you very quickly,'" the Star Tribune reports.

Nienstedt, in an interview with the newspaper, denied all the allegations and said they may be retaliation for some of the actions and stances he has taken, such as ending a gay group's use of a Detroit-area Catholic church for religious services and, in Minnesota, campaigning to amend the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. (The amendment did not pass, and state lawmakers enacted marriage equality the following year.) He has also made numerous antigay statements, such as saying homosexuality and marriage equality are the work of Satan.

"Certain groups in Detroit began spreading untrue rumors about me following difficult decisions I made as the rector of the Detroit seminary and as an auxiliary bishop," he told the Star Tribune. "Some priests in Detroit also vehemently disagreed with my positions and decisions."

He said he has never visited a gay bar or cruising spot, and that he was in Rome, assigned to the Vatican, at the time the incident at the cruising area allegedly occurred. He said the ski weekend was not private, but open to all seminary students and faculty, and that the man who said he was expelled actually left the school voluntarily. And he said he has no recollection of meeting the man who accused him of inappropriate touching, with his attorney adding that the accuser has been convicted of sexual assault.

Some clergy and Catholic laypeople would like to see the internal investigation's results made public, the Star Tribune reports. But the new archbishop, Bernard Hebda, "must balance those demands against the promise of confidentiality granted to those who participated in the investigation, as well as the possible implications -- if any -- it could have in the criminal case brought by Ramsey County," the paper notes. Nienstedt said he believes that if the results are released, he will be exonerated.

Meanwhile, the criminal case is proceeding, with a court hearing set for August 25.