The Minnesota Independent reports on the most recent efforts of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to lend Catholic support to a ballot initiative that would constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in that state:

Archbishop John Nienstedt sent a letter to every priest in the state at the start of October urging them to put every Catholic church in Minnesota to work passing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“It is imperative that we marshal our resources to educate the faithful about the Church’s teachings on these matters, and to vigorously organize and support a grass roots effort to get out the vote to support the passage of the amendment,” the letter read. It went out on Oct. 4 to every priest in the state.

The archbishop said it wants priests in every parish to identify a “church captain” in order to create an “ad hoc committee” in every church in the state. The “church captain” is a component of the Schubert Flint strategy used in 2008′s divisive Proposition 8 battle in California.

The strategy mirrors a similar one used by conservative Christians in California to pass Proposition 8 and end marriage rights for same-sex couples.

The online paper links to a copy of the Archbishop’s letter here. You may remember the controversy surrounding an expensive DVD campaign against same-sex marriage in the same archdiocese last year. Some background on same-sex marriage in Minnesota here, and an Archdiocesan statement clarifying it’s dissociation with a group called Catholics for Marriage Equality MN here.

Michael J. O’Loughlin is national correspondent at America and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.