Bishop reflects on front-burner issues, farm crisis, discipline crisis, cultural crisis

by Roger Matz

Although Bishop John Clayton Nienstedt has spent most of his life in Detroit or Rome, the term "farm crisis" means something to him.

He realizes that human tragedy hides behind those words. He knows the pain caused when farms fail and recognizes that "the economic and social questions of what’s happening in the farming business today" are front-burner issues in Minnesota’s most rural diocese.

"Small farmers are being forced out. Family farms are being forced out as agribusinesses take over," he said. He tells about friends in Michigan who ran into trouble with their farm, which had been in their family for more than 100 years. "They couldn’t make enough money and had to sell out. At 54 years of age, this man is looking at doing something else with his life, which is frightening and extremely frustrating, not only for him as a person but for his whole family."

Bishop Nienstedt also is sensitive to other diocesan challenges ranging from educating children to maintaining family values. "My hat is off to parents who are trying to raise sons and daughters in a world that is increasingly secular and individualistic in its emphasis," he said. "It’s so very difficult for parents to be able to communicate with their children and form them in the way in which they (the parents) were formed because of today’s outside influences and culture."

When he visits schools, he sees how these influences and pressures can affect the behavior of students. "You can see the way kids talk to one another or about one another. At times, there’s a lack of respect, a lack of knowing how to comport themselves. It carries through. It’s noticeable."

Bishop Nienstedt believes that "maintaining family life is probably at the heart, the root of the challenges faced by the church and by society today. There’s the farm crisis, a discipline crisis and a cultural crisis. They all have an adverse impact on the family. The challenge is to support family values. If we don’t have those, we’re in a bad way as a nation and a church."