John Nienstedt having resigned, there are a spate of "legacy" articles in the local press, all quite somber, perhaps appropriately so since there is nothing terribly funny about pedophilia and obstruction of justice. But on the principle that it's always good to laugh, I'd like to memorialize two of the former archbishop's unintentionally funny misadventures. After all, one candidate for his "legacy" would be that he helped to make his church and the Catholic clergy the butt of a million jokes.
"Do you trust me?" asks my octogenarian dad, when I call to ask whether he can babysit. "Of course," I say. "It's not like you're a priest or something--and, anyway, we only have girls." He laughs. Catholic Church, big joke: everyone's in on it.
I loved almost as much as anything the 400,000 DVDs that Nienstedt arranged to have mailed to Catholic households urging a Yes vote on Minnesota's marriage amendment a couple years ago. Four hundred thousand! Fewer than 3 million voted on the amendment, and the archdiocese sent out 400,000 DVDs. It's the layers of ineptitude and miscalculation that are humorous to contemplate. Big bucks, no bang. Maybe the recipients should also have received, Oprah-style, a DVD player! No, no, they might use it to watch Brokeback Mountain!
That is what composition teachers call a smooth transition into Nienstedt's work as an archdiocesan movie reviewer, which I consider to be his finest hour. This was back when he was archbishop of New Ulm. Ang Lee's epic was up for a zillion Golden Globes and Oscars, but the vigilant Nienstedt took to the pages of the archdiocesan newsletter to express a contrary opinion. His review is notable for the concision with which he summarizes the plot:
The story is about two lonely cowboys herding sheep on a mountain range. One night after a drinking binge, one man makes a pass at the other and within seconds the latter mounts the former in an act of wanton anal sex.
If memory serves, the newsletters of the Lutherans are less colorful. The affidavits collected by the Greene Espel law firm shed retrospective light on the evident gusto with which the reviewer sets the scene.
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