Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis made headlines recently when he distributed a DVD to his 800,000-member diocese reiterating the Church’s teaching on marriage. In an interview with AP about the project, reported by USA Today, he defended the Church’s involvement in what some see as a purely political issue — encouraging other Catholics to do the same:
“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] said Catholics need not fear a smaller church, and the threat of one is not a reason to abandon core tenets.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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“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.”
Of course, not everyone agreed:
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.”
It’s telling that even the suggestion that Catholics act…well, Catholic would immediately raise warnings about “weeding and judging.” The bishop’s words might be more necessary than we thought.