Archbishop Nienstedt Puts Pressure on Lavender Basilica

Edit: In the past, the Lavender Basilica has been resisting the Archbishop's initiatives, keeping an ambiguous presence at Minneapolis' depraved Gay Pride Festival and fostering an atmosphere of disobedience to the Archbishop and opposition to the Catholic Church's teachings on a variety of issues. On Friday, there was a giant puff piece giving a lot of attention to some of the usual suspects on the subject of the Defense of Marriage Act that is up for a vote in the state of Minnesota in the anti-Catholic 'MinnPost'.   There is some resistance from 17 parishes in the Archdiocese, the most dissident and substantial is the Basilica of St. Mary's, to the Archbishop's initiative, but there is also a loss of nerve.

There is a presence on Facebook of "Catholics" who say "No" , which has a list of parishes resisting the Archbishop, but it only boasts about five hundred souls, many coming from the Lavender Basilica of St. Mary's, which is the Archdiocese's Co-Cathedral.  Yet even at this place, the pressure is increasing and there was a flier included in this week's church bulletin, complained one of the Basilica's parishioners on the Facebook group:

Another dissident is Father Bob Pierson whom the Archbishop doesn't want teaching in the Archdiocese any longer and is keeping his mouth shut for now, except that the Tribune did cite him.

Archbishop Nienstedt is still remaining firm on the issue.  He's getting one of the most dissident parishes to get the message out and others will soon be following in their continued efforts to get the message out.  His statement for the MinnPoste was as follows:

“But the reality is that marriage is not ours to redefine, just as another human life is not ours to take,” the archbishop continues. “God is both the author of life and the author of marriage. It is this most fundamental understanding of the natural order that animates who we are as Catholics. ... It is also why we fight to defend God’s plan for marriage, because his providence is as clear for what marriage is as it is for the dignity of each human life. ...

At present, the Archdiocese has given $1 million to defend marriage, something which should be encouraging to local conservative protestants and conservatives in general who don't want to see society further eroded by such legislation.

There's also no word from the noxious Father Mike Tegeder.  He's not even mentioned in this article.

Add caption