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Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis: End the Archdiocese’s support of Minnesota's anti-gay marriage amendment
  1. Signatures
    149 out of 150
    Petitioning
    1. Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis (Archbishop John C. Nienstedt)
  2. Created By
    Emily Pechacek
    St. Louis Park, MN
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

Whether you live in Minnesota or somewhere else, whether you have faith in God or faith in our collective ability to make a better world, please consider getting involved by signing this petition and inviting your facebook friends to sign also.

Archbishop Nienstedt has significant financial and social resources at his disposal. The church's influence in the coming election could have grave civil rights ramifications for many Minnesotans. It also signals a dangerous turn in the Church away from the spiritual leadership embodied by Vatican II and toward the dangerous discriminatory practices that have darkened so much of its history.

If you do happen to be a Minnesota Catholic, please include your current and past parishes and any Catholic schooling you may have received with your signature. 

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Please end the Archdiocese’s support of the proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution that wo

Archbishop Nienstedt,

I just signed the following petition addressed to: Archbishop John C. Nienstedt.

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Most Reverend Archbishop Nienstedt,

As a devoted Minneapolis Catholic, I implore you to end the Archdiocese’s support of the proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution that would define marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.

Like so many Minnesota Catholics, I received 13 years of Catholic schooling, all within your archdiocese. I attend Mass regularly and have visited many of the congregations in our archdiocese. I have received thousands of hours of education in our shared faith. Never, in all that time, was I instructed by a priest, teacher, or lay minister that Catholics are called to exclude the outcast or perpetuate inequality. Instead, I have been taught since childhood that the Gospel of Christ is one of love and acceptance. We are each of us God’s children, created in God’s image and loved exactly as we are. And as God loves us, our responsibility is to love, accept, and support one another.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew (25:34-40), Our Lord instructs his disciples in their duty: feed the hungry, cloth the naked, look after the sick, visit the imprisoned, and welcome the stranger. This is the command of Our Lord, and therefore must be the first and greatest mission of God’s Holy Church. You and I may never agree on the question of gay rights, my most reverend father, but surely we must agree that by pursuing a divisive policy of exclusion, we distract ourselves from our sacred mission of social justice. Worse, instead of making our Church a place of welcome for all God’s children, we are making strangers of our brothers and sisters who are gay and yet still made in God’s image.

Our Lord Jesus calls his disciples to bring forth on Earth a Kingdom of God, a Kingdom in which all God’s children are respected, equal, free, and welcome. I know we both pray for the coming of such a kingdom. And for this reason, I ask you to reconsider your current policy and end our Church’s support of the proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution that would define marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.

Respectfully,


Emily Pechacek

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Respectfully,

[Your name]

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