AWARDS
Lamplighter
Award given to those fostering the light
of truth in a dark world:
To Archbishop John Nienstedt, head of the Diocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and a champion of orthodoxy who brings hope to battered Catholics. We particularly recognize AB Nienstedt for his vocal defense of marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. He sent out over 400,000 teaching DVD’s to Catholics in his diocese in October. He also denied Communion in September to about two dozen rainbow-sashers protesting in favor of same-sex marriage at a student Mass which took place at the end of “coming out” week at St. John’s University. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the group included three nuns and a priest. Some in sashes did receive Communion from extraordinary ministers who ignored diocesan policy.
Additionally, last year Archbishop Nienstedt condemned Notre Dame’s “egregious decision” to invite President Obama to deliver the commencement address. He called the president a former “pro-abortion legislator” and condemned his “deliberate disregard for the unborn” in promoting “the FOCA agenda” and “lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research.” We ask St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, who helped to lead the counter reformation to intercede for this warrior bishop and help him rein in and discipline his renegade clergy.
Millstone
Award
given to those who through ignorance or malice scandalize God's
people:
To Fr. Rene McGraw, a philosophy professor at St. John’s who, in an act of arrogant defiance of the Archbishop, said a short second Mass for the rainbow crowd and gave them Communion. He told the student newspaper, “It’s the Church that’s causing the problems here, not the students.” Actually, we’d say it’s this ear-tickling priest and an abbey notorious for homosexuality that is the problem. McGraw, a past liaison for clergy sex abuse, has stated that eight monks of the abbey, including a former abbot, confessed to sex abuse. Others have been credibly charged. McGraw told Insight News in 2002 that the names of abusers were not turned over to law enforcement because it was “public knowledge.” St. John’s shameful history as a homosexual enclave is documented on the website, Behind the Pine Curtain. Fr. McGraw is a scandal to the students of St. John and to the Church. We ask St. Peter Damian, a brother Benedictine who fought homosexual immorality in the 11th century, to pray for Fr. McGraw.
To Fr. Michael Tegeder, another ear-tickling Minnesota priest who publicly condemned the bishop’s defense of traditional marriage. In a letter published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, not only did he endorse same-sex marriage, a heretical position, but called Archbishop Nienstedt’s act of sending out the DVD’s “most scandalous.” Tegeder is living proof of Jesus’ prediction that a day would come when good was called evil and evil good. Fr. Tegeder exemplifies the Judas priest. At his ordination he placed his hands in the bishop’s and promised obedience to him and to the Church. Obviously, he lied, but lacks the integrity to leave. You cannot love the Church and defy her teachings. May St. Paul, that great lion of God, intercede for the conversion of Fr. Tegeder.