Last summer, Tom Johnson filed a complaint about Archbishop John Nienstedt under a new Vatican law. Eight months later, he’s still waiting to hear back from the Vatican.

A former three-term Hennepin County attorney and, since February 2018, the ombudsman for clergy sexual abuse victims in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Johnson made his complaint under the Vatican’s new procedures for investigating bishops accused of sexual misconduct or covering up another cleric’s sexual misconduct. Pope Francis established the procedures with the document “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You Are the Light of the World”), which took effect June 1, 2019.

The complaint states that Archbishop Nienstedt should be investigated for two reasons: first, for interfering with a police investigation of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer by mischaracterizing his relationship with Wehmeyer, and second, for an allegation that he undressed with minors in a hotel room during the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

Johnson outlines his allegations under “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” in a five-page letter to Archbishop Bernard Hebda dated July 17, 2019.  As required by “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” Archbishop Hebda forwarded the complaint to the metropolitan archbishop where Archbishop Nienstedt was residing and to the apostolic nuncio in Washington, DC.

According to “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” once the competent congregation in Rome receives the report, it has 30 days to decide whether to launch an investigation and, if so, how it should be handled.

As first reported by Crux News March 23 and confirmed by The Catholic Spirit, Johnson said he has not received word from the Holy See about its decision to investigate his allegation or why action on it has been delayed.

“Whatever the reason for the delay, it is unacceptable,” Johnson wrote in an unpublished commentary he shared with The Catholic Spirit. “The problem needs to be rectified in short order or risk undercutting the trust and transparency that the Protocols were intended to help restore, particularly among victim/survivors.”

Pope Francis issued “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” in May 2019 following a February 2019 summit on clergy sexual abuse attended by the presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the world. The document established worldwide protocols for addressing clergy sexual abuse, and outlined, for the first time, procedures for reporting bishops suspected of abuse or mishandling a clergy abuse allegation.

After leading the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis since 2008, Archbishop Nienstedt resigned his office in June 2015, less than two weeks after the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese for failing to protect children in the Wehmeyer case. The former priest sexually abused brothers who were parishioners when he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.

In the police investigation that led up to those charges, Archbishop Nienstedt was questioned about his relationship with Wehmeyer. He said that the two had four meals together, three of them in public places, to discuss the merger of Blessed Sacrament and St. Thomas the Apostle.

However, parish staff members interviewed by investigators described the men as having “numerous private dinners,” Johnson wrote in his letter. He quoted Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, who wrote in Ramsey County documents that the archbishop and Wehmeyer appeared to have “a more robust relationship than acknowledged by the archbishop.”

“At the heart of my allegation is whether Nienstedt was truthful about the motives and purposes behind his relationship with Wehmeyer, knowing that deliberate falsehoods could deflect or delay a criminal investigation involving the alleged — and now proven — sexual abuse of two minors by Wehmeyer,” Johnson wrote in his letter to Archbishop Hebda.

The second allegation Johnson characterizes as “the highly offensive conduct of Archbishop Nienstedt undressing in front of two minor boys and asking them to do likewise; conduct that constitutes a ‘sexual act’ within the context of ‘performing sexual acts with a minor’” under “Vos Estis Lux Mundi.”

According to a report made to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office in St. Paul, Archbishop Nienstedt invited two minor boys to his hotel room in Cologne, Germany, following a rainstorm during World Youth Day, where he undressed from his wet clothes in front of them, redressed, and had them undress and put on hotel robes until their clothes were dry.

Archbishop Nienstedt has denied the incident occurred. According to Johnson, in December 2018, he and Archbishop Hebda met with the man who had made the report to Ramsey County,  who was one of the boys at the hotel room, and Johnson found him to be “credible, intelligent and mature.”

Johnson said that this allegation should be considered in light of other allegations that Archbishop Nienstedt engaged in “inappropriate conduct … toward priests and seminarians, all of which have a plausible sexual motivation.” These allegations were the basis of an ill-fated investigation initiated by the Greene-Espel law firm and completed by Wold & Associates, another law firm. Archbishop Nienstedt has repeatedly denied the allegations.

In August 2018, Bishop Andrew Cozzens described the local investigation into Archbishop Nienstedt as “doomed to fail” because Church leaders “did not have enough objectivity or experience with such investigations” or “authority to act.”

“Throughout our efforts, we did not know where we could turn for assistance, because there was no meaningful structure to address allegations against bishops,” Bishop Cozzens said in an August 2018 statement. The failed investigation was one of the reasons Bishop Cozzens and Archbishop Hebda spoke out for the need for a reporting system for allegations against bishops, prior to Pope Francis’ release of “Vos Estis Lux Mundi.”

When it was released, Archbishop Hebda praised the document for its “groundbreaking provisions” that “respond to gaps in the laws and structures of the Church.”

Because allegations against Archbishop Nienstedt are unresolved, he has not been free to exercise public ministry in the archdiocese since December 2018.

Johnson says that the Vatican’s stall in addressing his claim against Archbishop Nienstedt calls into question the document’s promise.

“Surely, this is not what was intended,” Johnson wrote in the unpublished op-ed he shared with The Catholic Spirit. “To over-promise and under-deliver does a disservice to all involved, particularly the victim/survivors. This lesson should have been learned long ago. Action is needed, not more words.”

He continued: “Pope Francis recently abolished the so-called ‘pontifical secret’ by opening up Vatican records of past clerical sexual abuse; an action that clearly took an allocation of resources. He now needs to similarly direct an allocation of resources sufficient to review allegations of abuse against bishops in a timely, fair and transparent manner — consistent with his Protocols. The complaint against Archbishop Nienstedt is a clear and much needed starting point.”

Susan Mulheron, a canon lawyer and the archdiocese’s chancellor for canonical affairs, said it is possible that the Holy See has authorized an investigation without the reporter being informed, and that might “even be necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation.”

“Vos Estis Lux Mundi” “provides non-retaliation protections for the person submitting the report, specifically states that the reporter cannot be silenced, and it requires the metropolitan (archbishop) to extend pastoral care to those who have been harmed,” she added. “It does not require communication by the Holy See directly to the reporter at any point, although the metropolitan archbishop authorized to conduct an investigation may request authorization by the Holy See to share the results of the investigation with the reporter.”