Archbishop John Nienstedt

On April 2, 2014, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt was questioned under oath in a civil lawsuit-Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis, et. al. Nienstedt was asked about the Archdiocese’s past and present institutional child protection protocols and his public statements regarding the status of priests accused of the sexual abuse of minors.

The settlement of the Doe 1 lawsuit was announced on October 13, 2014 along with a 17-point child protection plan. On January 16, 2015, under Nienstedt’s leadership, the Archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.

Archbishop Nienstedt was ordained on July 27, 1974, and spent the first twenty years of his career in various parishes throughout Michigan and worked as Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Detroit. In 1996 Nienstedt was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit and in 2001 Pope John Paul II named Nienstedt the third Bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm. While presiding over the New Ulm diocese, Nienstedt oversaw the preparation of information pertaining to priests who had been accused of child sexual abuse that was submitted to the John Jay study in 2003. Following his tenure in New Ulm, Nienstedt was installed as coadjutor in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on June 29, 2007 and was appointed Archbishop on May 2, 2008.