Daily Prayer for Priest O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church ... give us holy priests. You yourself maintain them in holiness.
O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares, which are continually being set for the souls of priests.
May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring the naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priest, for You can do all things. - St. Faustina (Diary, 1052)
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Priest May Be Stripped of His Ministry if He Continues
to Disagree “With the Church’s Teaching on Marriage.”
Archbishop John Nienstedt is warning Catholic clergy across Minnesota that there should be no “open dissension” of the church’s strong backing of a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would define marriage as a union only between a man and woman.
In other early signs of the fervent campaign the church intends to wage for the amendment, which will be on every ballot in the state this fall, Nienstedt is appointing priests and married couples to visit archdiocesan high schools to talk about marriage. He has directed parishes to form committees to work for passage of the amendment. He also has warned a priest that he may be stripped of his ministry if he continues to disagree “with the church’s teaching on marriage.”
In a recent letter to priests and deacons, Nienstedt laid out why he believes it’s important that the marriage amendment pass: “The endgame of those who oppose the marriage amendment that we support is not just to secure certain benefits for a particular minority, but, I believe, to eliminate the need for marriage altogether.”
“As I see it, we have this one chance as Minnesotans to make things right,” he said. “The stakes could not be higher.”
With nearly 1.1 million Catholics in Minnesota, the church and its political arm, the Minnesota Catholic Conference, are likely to play a crucial role in whether the marriage amendment wins passage in November.
At the same time, other organizations such as Minnesotans United for All Families, a coalition that includes faith-based groups, are joining forces to defeat the amendment — making it certain that Minnesota will be thrust into the growing national debate over whether states should sanction gay marriage.
Standoff emerging
Besides urging parish priests to form church committees to support the amendment, Nienstedt also wants Catholics to recite a special “marriage prayer” during mass that endorses marriage between a man and woman.
In the coming months, teams of a priest and a married couple are also set to talk to high school students in the archdiocese about why marriage should be a union between a man and woman.
David Meyer, principal of Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, said juniors and seniors are scheduled to hear a presentation by a team in April.
“We don’t have a lot of details other than they’re obviously going to be presenting the benefits of marriage,” Meyer said. “I certainly support that.”
But there is opposition to the church’s strategy.
One vocal critic of Nienstedt is the Rev. Mike Tegeder, who spoke against the amendment at a priests’ meeting with Nienstedt in October.
In November, Tegeder received a letter stating that if he did not end his public opposition, Nienstedt would suspend his “faculties to exercise ministry” and remove him from his “ministerial assignments.”
Marking the first clear standoff over the church’s role in the amendment, Tegeder is not backing down.
He said he believes the church is being too political and contends that it’s inappropriate for its leaders to campaign in support of the amendment.
“That’s not the way to support marriage,” said Tegeder, pastor at both St. Frances Cabrini and Gichitwaa Kateri churches in Minneapolis. “If we want to support marriage, there are wonderful things we can do as Catholic churches and ministers. We should not be focused on beating up a small number of people who have this desire to have committed relationships.”
Some parishes are divided
Other priests in the Twin Cities metro area say many in their flocks believe the state’s bishops are being too political.
One priest, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he fears censure by the archbishop, said he is not reciting the “marriage prayer” during mass. He also said that he has struggled to find volunteers to participate with the pro-amendment committee.
“Too many of us have a relative, a good friend, someone we know who’s gay,” he said. “A lot of churches are not doing the prayer. They’re also appointing shell committees. Churches are creating them … but there’s really no true endorsement of the amendment.”
Archdiocesan officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, defends the campaign.
“We don’t believe we’re imposing anything on anybody in terms of ideas,” he said. “We’re simply training … and working in educating and informing our citizens to go out and be good citizens in the public arena and explain to others why we think this is an important issue.
“People are free to object to that … but we like everybody else have a responsibility and the freedom to participate in public debates.”
Church more active here
The emerging campaign by Minnesota bishops is “very unusual,” said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron who studies politics ad religion.
“Churches are about spiritual things, and it’s not that churches can’t take positions on human behavior or sexuality,” he said. “But the common complaint I’ve heard in many contexts is if the institution becomes politicized … it can detract from the spiritual mission of the church because you’ll have people having trouble praying with each other, who are going to feel uncomfortable coming to church.”
It is also uncommon for bishops to suspend priests for failing to abide by Catholic teaching. Still, religious scholars say that priests have been suspended in recent decades for supporting the ordination of women and having differing views about church doctrine on birth control.
Rose French
 Archbishop John Nienstedt By Andy Birkey; The Minnesota Independent – Archbishop John Nienstedt sent a letter to every priest in the state at the start of October urging them to put every Catholic church in Minnesota tow work passing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“It is imperative that we marshal our resources to educate the faithful about the Church’s teachings on these matters, and to vigorously organize and support a grass roots effort to get out the vote to support the passage of the amendment,” the letter read. It went out on Oct. 4 to every priest in the state.
The archbishop said it wants priests in every parish to identify a “church captain” in order to create an “ad hoc committee” in every church in the state. The “church captain” is a component of the Schubert Flint strategy used in 2008?s divisive Proposition 8 battle in California.
The strategy mirrors a similar one used by conservative Christians in California to pass Proposition 8 and end marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Schubert Flint was a public affairs firm at the heart of California’s successful push by conservative Christians to repeal marriage rights for that state’s same-sex couples. In a post-mortem, the firm wrote about it’s use of church captains:
“We built a campaign volunteer structure around both time-honored campaign grassroots tactics of organizing in churches, with a ground-up structure of church captains, precinct captains, zip code supervisors and area directors; and the latest Internet and web-based grassroots tools.”
Schubert Flint has been active in Minnesota, in particular during the 2010 gubernatorial election when it created a series of ads attacking DFL and Independence Party candidates for their support of rights for same-sex couples.
According to Nienstedt’s letter, the church captains will be organized by the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Catholic church, which will in turn report to the Minnesota for Marriage coalition for statewide efforts. Minnesota for Marriage is made up of the Minnesota Family Council, MCC and the National Organization for Marriage.
“A major issues will be placed before the State of Minnesota in the November 2012 election. a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” Nienstedt wrote. “The sanctity of marriage and vital role of the family is at stake. It is a firmly-held teaching of our church that a marriage is a union of a husband and a wife, and that they together are the ones suited to be a father and a mother.”
He added, “To define it otherwise is a detriment to the common good of society.”
Here’s the full letter from Nienstedt — here
HT: Father Z
Archbishop John C. Nienstedt At It Again! ! !
St. Paul, Minn (CNA) – Minnesota’s proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union of a man and a woman should be passed to help children flourish and to defend God’s plan for man and woman, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of Minneapolis and St. Paul says.
“The Minnesota Catholic Conference, made up of the seven Catholic bishops from the state, support this amendment not for prejudicial or political reasons, but rather for reasons that are theological, biological and pastoral,” Nienstedt wrote in his June 9 column for The Catholic Spirit.
 Archbishop John Neinstedt While Minnesota law already defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman, backers of the amendment say it is needed to prevent marriage from being redefined through lawsuits or legislative action.
In May the state legislature approved a bill to place the amendment on the 2012 ballot.
The archbishop said that the definition of marriage predates any government or religious denomination. Marriage “reflects God’s plan for man and woman to share in his creative power of bringing new life into the world.”
This understanding is “ratified by Jesus himself” in Matthew 19:8-9, he said. It is also “evident in light of the natural moral law.”
Both the biological and spiritual “complementarity” of the two sexes defines the reproductive nature of their relationship and enhances their “well-being and joy” as “a communion of life and love.”
“Every scientific study,” he said, confirms the reality that children “flourish best” when they have both a mother and a father. While single parents “strive mightily” to raise children as normally as possible, it is “a proven fact” that boys and girls develop better under the influence of both a mother and a father living in the same home.
The archbishop noted that Church teaching is always meant “to uphold and enhance the inherent dignity of the human person as a son or daughter of God.”
“Regrettably, the media and some secular commentators have chosen to mischaracterize this measure as anti-gay, mean-spirited and prejudicial. This is not the case or the intent behind the initiative,” he wrote.
In 2010 Archbishop Nienstedt and the other Catholic bishops of Minnesota authored a pastoral letter on marriage and mailed 400,000 DVDs to Catholics throughout the state. The DVDs explained the importance of traditional marriage and the need for a constitutional amendment to put the definition of marriage “beyond the reach of the courts and politicians.”
The bishops’ defense of marriage drew hostile coverage from several secular media outlets, which highlighted the objections of Catholic dissenters.
Support Archbishop Nienstedt
By Catholic Vote: Archbishop John Nienstedt refused to allow the Holy Mass turn into a political protest. A group of 25 activists who are opposed to the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage wore rainbow sashes at a Mass celebrated by the Archbishop.
 Archbishop John Nienstedt Not only did these protesters attend Mass wearing these sashes, but they tried to receive Communion despite publicly denouncing Church teaching. The protest organizer told the media: “We were making a statement during the Eucharist.”
The Archbishop of Saint Paul-Minneapolis would not allow the protestors to “make a statement” while receiving the Holy Eucharist. Archbishop Nienstedt refused to offer Communion to these activists who had already publicly announced their dis-unity.
These protesters told the media that their protest was spurred because Archbishop Nienstedt sent out DVDs which explained the Church’s position on marriage to 400,000 Catholics in Minnesota. The Archbishop has been under attack for defending the Church’s position on marriage since the DVDs were mailed out (at no expense to the Church) in late September.
Show your support and thank Archbishop John Nienstedt for refusing to allow the Holy Eucharist be used in a political protest. Thank this courageous bishop for standing strong for marriage as a union of a man and a woman.
“I support Archbishop Nienstedt!”
SIGN THE PETITION AT:
http://www.catholicvote.org/index.php?/site/actions_details/support_archbishop_nienstedt_for_defending_the_eucharist/
“I Was Ordained to Preach and to Teach the Full Spectrum of the
Catholic Faith as it is Contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Minneapolis, Minn., Nov 6, 2010 / 07:52 am (CNA).- Outlining his pastoral ministry, his work on immigration, and his prayerful opposition to abortion, the Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul has said that he must speak on controversial issues. His remarks follow activist and media opposition to the Minnesota bishops’ campaign to educate Catholics about the nature of marriage.
 Archbishop John Nienstedt “No bishop, and in particular this archbishop, is a ‘single-issue’ teacher,” Archbishop Nienstedt wrote in the Catholic Spirit newspaper. “I was ordained to preach and to teach the full spectrum of the Catholic faith as it is contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“The media pick and choose what they want to cover in terms of controversial issues. I do not have that luxury,” he added.
Seeking to provide perspective on his work, he listed the various activities of his weekend schedule. He celebrated a Mass with members of a Catholic charismatic movement and met with the parents of the archdiocese’s 62 seminarians.
The archbishop also participated in an all-night prayer vigil with English- and Spanish-speaking parishioners to ask God for a just solution to immigration problems. By coincidence he had previously written local Knights of Columbus councils and the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women to seek their help in calling for federal immigration law reform.
On Sunday morning, he made his 155th pastoral visit to the archdiocesan parish of St. Gerard Majella in Brooklyn Park. Its “festive liturgy” and many parishioners in attendance reminded him of why he became a priest, Archbishop Nienstedt reported.
Later on Sunday, he also attended a prayer service to end abortions at Regions Hospital, a teaching institution with its own abortion unit.
“Naturally, they do not advertise the number of abortions they perform per year, but it is known that more than 60 percent of these gruesome procedures are performed on minority women and on their unborn children,” the prelate explained.
Finally, the archbishop said, he joined two parents and their three-year-old as she went trick-or-treating. He also handed out candy at his residence.
Earlier this year the bishops of Minnesota mailed nearly 400,000 DVDs to Catholics throughout the state in response to several bills that would redefine civil marriage law to include homosexual partnerships. Archbishop Nienstedt made a video for the DVD in which he emphasized the nature of marriage as a lifelong and potentially procreative union between a man and a woman.
Laws which treated other partnerships as equal to traditional marriage would weaken society’s already damaged foundation, he warned.
The bishops’ defense of marriage drew hostile coverage from several secular media outlets, which highlighted the objections of Catholic dissenters.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune highlighted the efforts of artist Lucinda Naylor, who was suspended as a part-time artist at Minneapolis’ Basilica of St. Mary when she created a Facebook site seeking discarded copies of the DVD to build a wave sculpture.
In his Catholic Spirit column, Archbishop Nienstedt said that like St. Paul he must preach the “full, Catholic message,” whether it is “convenient or inconvenient,” while “constantly teaching and never losing patience.” (2 Timothy 4:2).
“Please pray that I live up to that high standard,” the archbishop concluded.
Don’t you just love it when you know exactly where a Bishop or priest stands!
Well done Archbishop John Nienstedt, a good and faithful servant.
“O’ How I Wish You Were Hot or Cold, But Because You Are Luke Warm I Will Spit You Out Of My Mouth”–God
By: Craig Lassig AP
The Catholic archbishop for the Twin Cities defended his right Monday to speak to fellow Catholics on social issues, and said a shrinking Roman Catholic church is no reason to consider a more liberal stance.
Archbishop John Nienstedt sat down with The Associated Press after a weekend in which the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese announced it would close 21 churches to reflect churchgoers’ move from urban areas to suburbia, declines in regular church attendance and an expectation of fewer new priests to replace those who retire or die.
The archbishop, who recently angered some of the area’s 800,000 Catholics with the mailing of an anti-gay marriage DVD, said he believes spiritual leaders have a duty to talk to their flock about issues they see as important — even if some of those views might be unpopular with prospective churchgoers.
“We’re part and parcel of the culture, so it’s important for us to be involved with those discussions and have our say,” Nienstedt said. He said Jesus Christ directed his followers to “either be hot or cold, but if you’re lukewarm, I don’t want that. So we want people who live their faith.”
Nienstedt called the reorganization, which also will involve dozens more churches sharing priests and some staff and resources, “a reconfiguring of resources to meet our needs and mission.” But he said Catholics need not fear a smaller church, and the threat of one is not a reason to abandon core tenets.
“I believe that it’s important that if you’re going to be Catholic, that you have to be 100% Catholic,” Nienstedt said. “That you stand by the church, you believe what the church believes and you pass that on to your sons and daughters and your grandsons and granddaughters.”
The Rev. Mike Tegeder, lead pastor at St. Edward Catholic Church in Bloomington and a frequent critic of the archbishop, said he was puzzled by the term “100 percent Catholic.”
“The church has always gotten into trouble when it seeks to separate the pure from the impure,” said Tegeder, whose suburban congregation emerged unscathed from the reorganization plans. “Jesus cautions us to be careful in weeding and judging.”
Tegeder and some other priests have argued the Catholic Church could quickly resolve its problem with declining numbers of priests if it allowed married clergy. But “I personally don’t see that happening,” Nienstedt said.
One church on the list of those to be closed and merged with several nearby churches is St. Clement, in Minneapolis. its pastor, the Rev. Earl Simonson, said he’s not sure if the building will actually shut down or still be used for some services, though under the archdiocese’s approach it will at minimum lose its name.
“We just wait for the great archbishop to tell us what we’re doing,” Simonson said. “We’re mere flunkies.”
Still, Simonson did not take issue with Nienstedt’s conviction that smaller isn’t necessarily less desirable for the Catholic Church.
“That’s what I was taught in seminary,” Simonson said. “If you don’t want to be Catholic, then get out. The archbishop is right about that. Human nature being what it is, you’ll always have some who think they can be half in and half out.”
Let us know your thoughts. Is the Archbishop being “judgmental” or faithful to Christ.
Archbishop Nienstedt Under Attack For
Refusing The Eucharist To Obvious LGBT Protestors
By PAUL WALSH and MARIA ELENA BACA Star Tribune
 Archbishop John Nienstedt St. Benedict theology junior Elizabeth Gleich, PRiSM vice president, said, “We were making a statement during the eucharist, and many have disagreed with that. But when we have no other way of dialoguing with our church, no other way of telling him how we feel, how else to do it than in liturgy?”
She said their complaint is with church hierarchy, not with the colleges.
Another student, senior Andrew Grausam, said he sat behind the group. “It was sad to see the mass politicized like that,” Grausam said. “And even though I wholeheartedly disagree with the archbishop on this issue, I was hurt to see my worship become a place of demonstration.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which describes itself as the nation’s largest civil rights organization on behalf of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, expressed outrage at Nienstedt’s actions.
“Jesus didn’t play politics with communion,” Harry Knox, the HRC’s religion and faith program director, said Tuesday in a statement. “He offered his body and blood for everyone.”
In the Twin Cities area, at least two efforts have gathered hundreds of DVDs from Catholics opposed to its message. Minneapolis artist Lucinda Naylor estimated Tuesday that she’d gathered about 600. A group called Return the DVD has received about 1,000 in its Burnsville post office box, and also has garnered about $5,000 in donations to help the poor, said organizer Bob Radecki.
The archdiocese has received about 100 DVDs back by mail, McGrath said. The campaign was made possible by anonymous donors and not by church funds, he said.
The U.S. Postal Service will not return bulk-mailed items. Spokesman Pete Nowacki said there’s no way of knowing how many have been received and discarded.
Tell us what you think.
Were the writers a little biased?
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