John Clayton Nienstedt (born March 18, 1947) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the eighth archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota from 2008 to 2015. He previously served as bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota from 2001 to 2007 and as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit from 1996 to 2001. Nienstadt asked for early retirement as archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis after a local prosecutor announced plans to indict the archdiocese due to its failure to protect children from sexual abuse by its priest.