A priest who is alleged to have organised a gay orgy in which a man was hospitalised after overdosing on erectile dysfunction pills has been arrested and could face up to eight years in jail.
Father Tomasz Zmarzły from the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in Poland was charged with sex and drug crimes as well as failure to help someone at medical risk following a police investigation into the incident.
The disgraced clergyman had allegedly thrown a small party with a male prostitute and his friend at his apartment in the city of Dąbrowa Górnicza in September last year.
But when police and paramedics were refused entry after being called when one of the men collapsed, prosecutors launched an investigation into the priest for failing to help the unconscious man.
Leaked telephone recordings suggested that the victim may have been plied with the date rape drug known as GHB.
According to Fakt newspaper which received the recording, a man believed to be the male prostitute is heard talking frantically to the emergency services.
In the call, the paper said he is heard sobbing: ‘He was so high… And they told me that he shouldn’t be touched! I tell them, check, I lifted his head and he was foaming at the mouth…’
He is then allegedly heard saying: ‘There are bars on the doors, I don’t know why… they kicked me out, hurry up!
‘Yeah, they were taking some DHB or something. I don’t know. Some GHB and drops or something… I don’t know, send an ambulance here. And the police.’
When police and paramedics were finally allowed into the apartment, they found a naked man lying unconscious on the floor.
He was taken to hospital where he later recovered and discharged himself.
It later emerged that Father Zmarzły who was suspended following the incident had also been looking for hookups on the gay dating app Grindr.
According to his former partner who contacted local newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Zmarzły turned to the dating app after being unsure about becoming a priest.
The former partner said: ‘At the end of his studies at the seminary, Tomek, aware of his homosexuality, hesitated about whether to accept priestly ordination at all.
‘He [went on] Grindr but he finally decided to become a priest.’
Local outrage in the strongly Catholic town saw one man attempting to burn down the church and ‘the faithful’ stopped their children attending service.
The local mayor also cut off ties with the church which is overseen by the diocese of Sosnowiec.
The disgraced clergyman had allegedly thrown a party with a male prostitute and his friend at his apartment, but police and paramedics were refused entry after being called when one of the men collapsedBlessed Virgin Mary of the Angels
Posting on social media at the time, mayor Arkadiusz Chęciński said: ‘As a city, we are famous for tolerance and respect for all faiths and views.
‘However, due to recent reports from the diocese negatively influencing opinions about the city, the outrage of the inhabitants and the lack of a clear dissociation from these matters forces me to make the unpleasant decision to suspend the city’s cooperation with the Diocese of Sosnowiec until real corrective actions are taken.’
The disgraced priest also faced a backlash from his colleagues.
A fellow member of the clergy said: ‘It’s time to stop pretending. Everyone in our community knew that he had a huge problem with sexuality.
‘However, nothing was done to help him solve the problem.’
Following his arrest this week, prosecutor spokesman Waldemar Łubniewski told the Polish Press Agency: ‘Three of the charges are drug-related offences, one of which is for giving another person an illegal substance.
‘Another charge is related to violating another person’s sexual freedom.
‘The fourth charge concerns causing serious bodily injury and failing to provide assistance to a person whose health and life was in danger.’
The spokesman did not give specifics of the sexual charge, but it is known to carry a maximum penalty of up to eight years in prison.
Zmarzły is yet to comment following his arrest on Monday, but when the scandal was first reported, he sent a statement to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper denying all the allegations.
— Has the pope’s statement on same-sex marriage created more problems than it solves?
“Fiducia Supplicans” should probably be seen as a culmination of Pope Francis’s personal engagement with the issue of same-sex love, which began with his 2013 remark in response to a question about gay Catholics: “Who am I to judge?”
By Miles Pattenden
Pope Francis has endorsed same-sex couples; or he hasn’t; or he allows them to be blessed but only as separate individuals. The news out of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) following the publication of Fiducia Supplicans (a declaration “on the pastoral meaning of blessings”) has been various and confusing.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the DDF’s beleaguered Prefect, last week had to issue a press release “clarifying” the declaration’s reception and interpretation.
Fernández, like Pope Francis, claims to be clear about two things:
The blessings discussed in Fiducia Supplicans are not a substitute for marriage — nor should they be confused as offering anything sacramental or equivalent to marriage.
The Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality remains unchanged — that is to say, the Church regards homosexual feelings as regrettable but not sinful. Consummating an act of same-sex love is, however, wrong because all non-potentially procreative sex and all sex outside of marriage is contrary to God’s will for humanity.
This latter position is consistent with the various stances that individual popes, cardinals, and theologians have taken over the course of the twentieth century and during the first two decades of the twenty-first.
Of course, it does not satisfy gay Catholics who argue that the perception that God is against same-sex love is a product of historical bigotry rather than divine revelation. They, moreover, point to the fact that most heterosexual Catholics also routinely ignore the Church’s teachings on sex outside marriage — and this does not stop priests and bishops agreeing to marry them.
Conservative Catholics, on the other hand, sometimes seem to worry that even framing the situation in such terms (hate the sin, love the sinner) is just a cover for those who would prepare the ground to change Church teaching.
Juxtaposing God’s unlimited love and mercy with a somewhat petty, arbitrary prohibition on a particular loving act can be argued to be highlighting an inconsistency in the Church’s position — even if there are sound theological reasons to defend it.
What “Fiducia Supplicans” tried to do
Fiducia Supplicans should probably be seen as a culmination of Pope Francis’s personal engagement with the issue of same-sex love which began with his now celebrated (or notorious) 2013 remark in response to a question about gay Catholics: “Who am I to judge?”
Gay Catholics, and liberal Catholics, have pinned their hopes on him to usher in reform ever since — on this issue and on other issues relating to women in the Church, clerical marriage, divorced Catholics, and sex outside marriage. Conservatives and traditionalists, by contrast, have grown increasingly suspicious.
Last year, Francis responded to five “dubia” (or questions) which a group of conservative cardinals sent to him. From the outside, their effort appeared to be intended to box him in on these subjects — and on the gay question, in particular. In fact, they opened something of a Pandora’s Box, because they gave him the chance to avoid an outright condemnation of being in a gay relationship.
In our relationships with people, we must not lose the pastoral charity, which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes. The defence of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity; it also includes kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.
He invoked a concept of “pastoral prudence”, which dictates that a priest:
must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not convey a mistaken concept of marriage. For when a blessing is requested, it is expressing a plea to God for help, a supplication to live better, a trust in a Father who can help us live better.
In a way, Fiducia Supplicans just repeats this message, clarifying a somewhat ambiguous further statement that Francis made: “Decisions that may be part of pastoral prudence in certain circumstances should not necessarily become a norm.”
The main points the text makes are simply that blessings are ubiquitous in Christianity, they have different meanings, and they need not take on specific ritual or liturgical forms. They can be “spontaneous” and, when spontaneous, they need not be taken to mean something specific. In this way, it is possible to “bless” gay couples (or anyone else) without condoning their lifestyle or actions.
One can sympathise with Cardinal Fernández in thinking that the pope’s 2023 answer to the dubium raised more questions than it answered and might have merited a timely interpretative statement to settle debate about it. But Fiducia Supplicans has patently not settled debate — in large part because neither side is willing to accept it at face value. Both supporters of reform to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and opponents believe it sets down a marker that will be used in new ways.
Critiquing “Fiducia Supplicans”
For liberal Catholics, Fiducia Supplicans can seem, in some ways, a mere acknowledgement of the obvious: that God is moved by love and mercy and that the point of blessings is to recognise and give thanks for that.
For Cardinal Fernández, the document’s point is probably something different. It attempts to diffuse the issue by defining a series of propositions on which the pope has allowed significant speculation to build.
For instance, if a “blessing” is simply a spontaneous gesture of thanks to God — what is referred to in Fiducia Supplicans as an “ascending” blessing — then it is hardly something that any reasonable person could confuse with the sacramental rite of marriage.
On the other hand, if the blessing is what the document terms a “descending” blessing — a request to God to extend his grace — then it is little more than a prayer. It is an act that asks God to grant something which he may or may not do — but what it asks God remains ambiguous.
Too Jesuitical by half?
The conservative fear about Cardinal Fernández’s interpretation of the blessing of gay couples is this: a gay couple can understand it as a blessing on their union and their friendship, but a conservative priest can, with equal legitimacy, understand it as exhorting God to help the couple, through his grace, to see the error of their ways.
Fernández may think this takes the theological heat out of the matter — by allowing different parties to believe it has different effects — but it does not.
At the moment, no conservative priest will consent to bless a gay couple, which makes the proposition just advanced seem ridiculous. Yet one can imagine why a conservative priest might be anxious that the pope is preparing the ground to require him to do so by creating a Jesuitical loophole for his conscience which can later be closed. The Church of England appears to be going through much the same process of self-inflicted contortions with regards to its own “gay marriage” debate.
These arguments, moreover, form part of wider critiques against Francis and his approach to the pontificate. Conservatives now also criticise Fernández for showing a deplorable lack of judgement.
The apparent naïveté in promulgating Fiducia Supplicans and then clarifying it damages the papacy, as an influx of requests for papal blessings on parchment sheets (a special kind of document all Catholics can request from the Vatican) for same-sex couples now shows. Francis has thus been put in a bind, which he may not have intended. As Christopher Altieri notes:
he can’t refuse [these requests] without appearing stingy and legalistic — “rigid” is a word for it — but he can’t grant them without violating both the letter and the spirit of the very declaration that created the conundrum in the first place.
Such arguments have force, moreover, because gay blessings are just one front in the battle. Recent reports that Francis is being urged to allow priests to marry or even to let lay people have a say in the process for electing his successor are alarming conservatives just as much. And with the battle on so many fronts, it is not clear how best to oppose the pope. It is not even clear which of these causes, if any, he is most serious about advancing in the perhaps short time he has left.
2024 could be a turbulent year for the Catholic communion. No doubt all Catholics are praying for wisdom from all sides as they try to resolve amicably the forces unleashed.
When Pope Francis met in October with leaders of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics at the Vatican, Seattle’s Leo Egashira said it was a pivotal moment.
Given the “glacial” pace of change for the church, he said the picture of LGBTQ+ Catholic leaders meeting with the pope would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.
Egashira, who was a longtime board member of DignityUSA, a U.S. organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics and is involved in the Global Network, said the meeting was a “tacit blessing” and an opening that portends great hope for change in the church.
Then last month’s decision by Pope Francis to allow blessings for same-sex couples took that change a step further.
“I think it’s an acknowledgment that our voices are being heard, and that the leaders are realizing that all people are part of the church and that it’s not an exclusive club,” Egashira said. “I think that the current pope has a very pastoral leadership style, and that pastoral leadership style calls for inclusivity.” Egashira described a pastoral approach as seeing and addressing the personal and spiritual needs of an individual as opposed to judging people for their adherence to specific rules.
But, he said, it is just a first step. “Eventually, I hope it does lead to not only acceptance, but support for LGBTQ Catholics,” he said. “Acceptance is the lowest minimum bar. And this is a step toward that. But I think people deserve and want much more than that.”
Egashira was born into a Seattle Japanese American Catholic family and is a member of the Central District’s multicultural Immaculate Conception Church. He is one of only two of his surviving eight siblings who is still part of the church. Egashira said most of his siblings no longer found the church to be aligned with their beliefs or relevant to their lives.
As a proud gay man, Egashira is determined to stay and fight for change in the church from within.
While the focus of DignityUSA has long been on inclusion for LGBTQ+ Catholics, Egashira emphasizes that addressing misogyny and patriarchy in the church are also critical to making progressive change.
“The basic cause of homophobia is misogyny,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to address homophobia … or transphobia adequately without addressing misogyny. It’s the fear and hatred of women that animates transphobia and homophobia.”
Bishop Edward Donalson III, of the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement at Seattle University and a board member of Faith Action Network, agrees.
Bishop Edward Donalson III is with the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement at Seattle University and is a board member of Faith Action Network.
Donalson said at the root, it’s the “hatred of the feminine” that undergirds homophobia. “All anti-LGBTQ ideology is moored in misogyny and cis hetero patriarchy — not just patriarchy, it’s a specific cis hetero patriarchy,” he said. “Cis” is shorthand for cisgender, or a person whose gender identity aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth.
It’s important to understand, Donalson said, that the pope’s statement on blessing same-sex couples does not change Catholic theology.
“It does not make same-gender marriage sacramental,” Donalson said. “And that’s an important distinction, both for Catholics who are worried that their church is changing and for LGBTQ folks who might be somewhat deceived by what the messaging is, or somewhat confused by the messaging.”
But, he said, the statement does acknowledge the humanity of LGBTQ+ Catholics who choose to be legally married in the places around the world where legal marriage is an option. It’s not surprising that it came from Francis, Donalson said, because “everything about Pope Francis has been a clear indicator that he has an eye toward compassion. And this is directly in line with his eye toward compassion.”
Yet most importantly, Donalson said the pope’s statement is an opportunity for the church to have a deeper conversation about what it means to bless and what it means to marry. “I think what the pope has done is presented an opportunity for the church to interrogate itself,” he said.
Donalson said that despite all that could be said about the church, it creates community and a place for people to connect to something bigger than themselves worldwide. “People — particularly post pandemic, in an era of absolute isolation — are drawn to places of community, compassion, care,” he said.
Egashira said it’s a deep commitment to caring for all people through charitable work and pastoral care that represents the best of the church.
“The core tenets are, I think, unassailable. And almost anyone can live with it. It’s this when you get all the trappings, the institutional trappings and the power and the politics that go along with it, that it becomes perverted,” he said.
“In times past … the Catholic Church has been the strongest proponent of civil rights and equality,” Egashira said. “And so that aspect I do like, but the fact that in its own house that it has a severe form of misogyny, severe homophobia, it’s really hard to reconcile that with many of the good actions of the Catholic Church.”
— It’s a question fracturing major Christian denominations
FILE – Shelby Ruch-Teegarden, of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, joins other protestors during the United Methodist Church’s special session of the general conference in St. Louis, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. United Methodist rules forbid same-sex marriage rites and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals,” but progressive Methodist churches in the U.S. have increasingly been defying these rules.
Catholics around the world are sharply divided by the Vatican’s recent declaration giving priests more leeway to bless same-sex couples. Supporters of LGBTQ inclusion welcome the move; some conservative bishops assail the new policy as a betrayal of the church’s condemnation of sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners.
Strikingly, the flare-up of debate in Catholic ranks coincides with developments in two other international Christian denominations — the global Anglican Communion and the United Methodist Church — that are fracturing over differences in LGBTQ-related policies.
Taken together, it’s a dramatic illustration of how – in a religion that stresses God’s love for humanity – divisions over marriage, sexuality, and inclusion of gays and lesbians are proving insurmountable for the foreseeable future in many sectors of Christianity.
Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University and pastor of an American Baptist church, says it’s become increasingly difficult for Christian denominations to fully accommodate clergy and congregations with opposing views on same-sex relationships, particularly as such marriages have become legal in much of Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
“A lot of denominations are in the position where you have to make a decision — you can’t be wishy-washy anymore,” said Burge, a specialist in religious demographics. “That’s the tension they’re facing: how to keep older conservatives in the fold while attracting younger people.”
For global denominations — notably Catholics, Anglicans and United Methodists — Burge sees another source of tension: Some of their biggest growth in recent decades has been in socially conservative African countries where same-sex relationships are taboo.
“African bishops have this ammunition,” Burge said. “They say to the West, ‘We’re the ones growing. You have the money, we have the numbers.’”
Kim Haines-Eitzen, a professor of religious studies at Cornell University, said Christianity — throughout its history — has been divided over differing theological views, such as whether women could be ordained as clergy.
Same-sex couples take part in a public blessing ceremony in front of the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, on Sept. 20, 2023. Pope Francis formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document released Monday Dec. 18, 2023 explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
“Christianity is incredibly diverse — globally, theologically, linguistically, culturally,” she said. “There are bound to be these incredibly divisive issues, especially when bound up in scriptural interpretation. That’s what keeps world religions alive — that kind of push and pull.”
ANGST AMONG ANGLICANS
Among Christian denominations, the Anglican Communion is second only to the Catholic Church in geographic spread. Divisions over marriage, sexuality and LGBTQ inclusion have roiled the communion for many years, and they widened Dec. 17, when Church of England priests offered officially sanctioned blessings of same-sex partnerships for the first time.
The Church of England’s ban on church weddings for gay couples remains, but the decision to allow blessings has infuriated several conservative Anglican bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby walks through Westminster in London on Sept. 14, 2022.
Caught in the middle is the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby — the top bishop of the Church of England and ceremonial leader of the Anglican Communion.
Welby says he won’t personally bless same-sex couples because it’s his job to unify the world’s 85 million Anglicans. That hasn’t appeased some conservative bishops, who say they no longer recognize Welby as their leader.
The decision to allow blessings of same-sex couples followed five years of discussions about church positions on sexuality. Church leaders apologized for a failure to welcome LGBTQ people but also affirmed the doctrine that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
“What we have proposed as a way forward does not go nearly far enough for many, but too far for others,” said Sarah Mullally, bishop of London.
Of the more than 7,650 departing churches, most are conservative-leaning congregations responding to what they see as a failure to enforce bans on same-sex marriage and the ordaining of openly LGBTQ people.
There’s no firm estimate of how many members are leaving, as some who belong to departing congregations are joining other UMC churches. But UMC officials are preparing to cut denominational agencies’ budgets in anticipation of lower revenues from church offerings.
Pope Francis arrives to celebrate mass at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. Catholics around the world are sharply divided by Francis’ December 2023 declaration giving priests more leeway to bless same-sex couples.
United Methodist rules forbid same-sex marriage rites and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals,” but progressive Methodist churches in the U.S. have increasingly defied these rules.
Conservatives have mobilized like-minded congregations to exit; many are joining the new Global Methodist Church, which intends to enforce such rules.
More than half of United Methodist members are overseas, many in conservative African churches. When UMC delegates meet this spring, they’re expected to debate proposals to liberalize ordination and marriage policies, and make it easier for overseas churches to leave.
SPLITS IN OTHER PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS
Presaging the UMC schism, several other mainline Protestant denominations over the past two decades endured splits resulting from irreconcilable differences between supporters and opponents of LGBTQ inclusion. For example, after the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop in 2003, some dioceses and conservatives formed the Anglican Church in North America.
Similar liberal/conservative differences prompted hundreds of congregations to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) after they embraced LGBTQ-inclusive policies.
Some conservative denominations — such as the Southern Baptist Convention and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — have adhered firmly to policies that reject recognition of same-sex relationships and ordination of openly LGBTQ people. These policies have prompted departures, but no major schism.
Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptists’ public policy commission, reiterated the SBC’s position in a statement asserting that the Vatican — under Pope Francis — “has been on a trajectory that seems destined for the allowance of same-sex marriage.”
The Rev. Catherine Bond, left and Reverend Jane Pearce react after being blessed at St John the Baptist church in Felixstowe, England, on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023 after the use of prayers of blessing for same-sex couples in Church of England services were approved by the House of Bishops.
“The reality is marriage has been defined by God … It is a union between one man and one woman for life,” Leatherwood said. “Southern Baptists remain anchored in this truth.”
ORTHODOX CHURCH DISAPPROVAL
The world’s second-largest Christian communion, after the Catholic Church, is the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 220 million members, concentrated mostly in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. To a large extent, Orthodox Christians disapprove of same-sex marriage and relationships.
In Greece, where the government is pledging to legalize same-sex marriage, the Orthodox Church has expressed strong opposition.
Russia’s Orthodox Church has supported tough anti-LGBTQ legislation enacted with the support of President Vladimir Putin.
NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS
Debate over LGBTQ inclusion hasn’t been as divisive in the world’s other major religions as in Christianity.
In the Muslim world, there’s widespread disapproval of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage; many Muslim nations criminalize homosexuality. However, some LGBTQ-inclusive mosques have surfaced in North America and other places.
Among Jews around the world, there are varying approaches to LGBTQ issues, but relatively little high-profile rancor. Orthodox Judaism disapproves of same-sex marriage and sexual relations, while they’re widely accepted in the Reform and Conservative branches.
In Hinduism and Buddhism, there is no universal, official position on same-sex marriage. Many practitioners of the two faiths disapprove of such unions; some communities are more accepting.
FILE – In this Jan. 16, 2015, file photo, Archbishop John Nienstedt addresses a news conference in St. Paul, Minn. A long Vatican investigation into misconduct allegations against Archbishop Nienstedt, the former leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, concluded that he took “imprudent” actions but did not violate church law, the archdiocese announced Friday, Jan. 5, 2024.
by STEVE KARNOWSKI
A lengthy Vatican investigation into misconduct allegations against Archbishop John Nienstedt, the former leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, concluded that he took “imprudent” actions but did not violate church law, the archdiocese announced Friday.
However, the archdiocese also said Pope Francis barred Nienstedt from any public ministry following the investigation.
Bernard Hebda, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, smiles after delivering the opening prayer in the Minnesota House as the 2017 Legislature convened Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017 in St. Paul, Minn. A long Vatican investigation into misconduct allegations against Archbishop John Nienstedt, the former leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, concluded that he took “imprudent” actions but did not violate church law, the archdiocese announced Friday, Jan. 5, 2024.
His successor, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, in 2016 forwarded allegations to the Vatican that Nienstedt invited two minors to a hotel room in 2005 during a youth rally in Germany to change out of wet clothes, and that he then proceeded to undress in front of them and invited them to do the same. Nienstedt was the bishop of New Ulm, Minnesota, at the time.
In this May 3, 2016 photo, the St. Paul Cathedral is pictured in St. Paul, Minn. It’s been nearly three years since Minnesota opened a path for lawsuits by victims of long-ago childhood sexual abuse. A long Vatican investigation into misconduct allegations against Archbishop John Nienstedt, the former leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, concluded that he took “imprudent” actions but did not violate church law, the archdiocese announced Friday, Jan. 5, 2024.
On Friday, Hebda said in a statement that he was recently informed that the investigation was complete — the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for enforcing sexual morality, concluded that available evidence doesn’t support violations of church law, so any such allegations against him were “unfounded.”
However, Hebda said, “it was communicated to me that several instances of ‘imprudent’ actions were brought to light,” and while none were deemed to warrant “any further investigation or penal sanctions,” the pope decided that three administrative actions against Nienstedt were justified.
As a result, Nienstedt can’t exercise any public ministry in the Province of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, which covers Minnesota and the Dakotas. He can’t live in the province. And he can’t exercise any ministry elsewhere without the approval of the local bishop — and only after the Vatican has been notified.
Nienstedt, who remains an archbishop, is believed to be living in Michigan, Tom Halden, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said in a statement. Nienstedt has kept a low public profile after coming under fire in 2016 when word got out that he was filling in at a Michigan parish. Nienstedt did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on the findings and the actions against him.
Hebda’s statement did not say what Nienstedt’s “imprudent” actions were. The spokesman said he couldn’t provide details, and Vatican press officials did not immediately respond to emails seeking elaboration.
Nienstedt said in a statement that he has “fully cooperated” with all investigations into allegations against him and answered every question honestly and to the best of his recollection. He said he has asked the Holy See to clarify the “imprudent” actions he allegedly committed.
“I will heed the direction given to me by the Holy Father, which I have been following for the past seven years,” Nienstedt said. “I am retired now so my ministry will continue to be limited. I am sorry for any pain experienced by anyone because of the allegations against me, and ask for your prayers for their healing.”
Hebda’s statement also did not say why it took the Vatican so long to conclude its investigation. But Hebda said a church law that Francis issued in 2019 saying that sexual abuse and and coverup allegations against bishops and priests should be reported and investigated “created a path forward for a resolution of the Archbishop Nienstedt matter.”
“Please join me in praying that this resolution may bring further healing to our Archdiocese and to all those involved in these matters,” Hebda concluded.
SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement that the investigation left more questions than answers. The group said the restrictions on Nienstedt show that the church is reluctant to associate itself with him, but that it failed to adequately address his alleged misconduct.
“Ignoring Nienstedt’s behavior only serves to condone it and encourages a culture of corruption within the church, where clergy and staff members may turn a blind eye, knowing that the consequences will be minimal if they are caught,” SNAP said.
