John Clayton Nienstedt

Styles of John Clayton Nienstedt
Reference style	His Excellency The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Archbishop

John Clayton Nienstedt (born March 18, 1947) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the eighth Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis until his resignation on June 15, 2015. He previously served as Bishop of New Ulm from 2001 to 2007.

John Nienstedt was born in Detroit, Michigan, to John C. and Elizabeth S. (née Kennedy) Nienstedt. The second oldest of six children, he has two brothers, Richard and Michael, and three sisters, Barbara, Mary, and Corinne.

He graduated in 1969 from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, before furthering his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, earning a Bachelor's degree in Sacred Theology in 1972. On April 29, 1972, he was ordained a deacon at the Pontifical North American College. He also received a licentiate and doctorate of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Institute of St. Alphonsus in 1977; his doctoral thesis was entitled, "Human Life in a Test-tube; the Moral Dimension of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo transfer."

Upon his return to the United States, Nienstedt was ordained to the priesthood on July 27, 1974. He then served as an associate pastor at Guardian Angels Parish in Clawson until 1976. He became secretary to Cardinal John Francis Dearden and a part-time professor of moral theology at St. John Provincial Seminary in Plymouth in 1977. He was also a weekend associate pastor at St. Fabian's Parish in Farmington Hills and at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Farmington before becoming vicar general for the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1979. He accompanied Cardinal Dearden to the August 1978 papal conclave, where he met the future Pope John Paul II.