By DAVID O'REILLY
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Nearly three years after the Episcopal Church suspended him for covering up his brother's sexual abuse of a minor girl, Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. has been restored as head of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.
In a ruling released Thursday, a church appeals panel reversed a lower church court's 2008 order that Bennison be defrocked and permanently removed from the helm of the 55,000-member diocese, comprising Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Chester Counties.
Although Bennison badly mishandled his brother's prolonged sexual abuse of a teenager in his California parish during the 1970s, the appeals court concluded, the church's statute of limitations on such wrongdoing had expired after 10 years.
"We find that (Bennison) committed conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy," the eight-member panel of bishops wrote. But "because the statute of limitations has run out ... we have no choice under the canons of the church but to reverse the judgment of the trial court that (he) is guilty."
Bennison, 66, described himself as "very gratified" in a teleconference call from Michigan, where he is vacationing. He plans to return to his duties as bishop Aug. 16.
"I hope I am a changed person," he said, adding that his immediate goal was to listen to the men and women who have led the diocese since his suspension in October 2007. He said he would likely devote more attention to the spiritual affairs of the diocese than to its finances or administration.
"My main reason for coming back is that I think I have something to offer along those lines ... preaching and teaching," he said.
Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, national head of the denomination, had no comment on the ruling. The local diocesan standing committee, which has handled administrative matters in Bennison's absence, called on members to keep him "in your prayers." Bishop Paul Michel conducted sacramental duties during Bennison's suspension.
Bennison became bishop of the five-county diocese in 1998. He is allowed to serve until Nov. 30, 2015, when he turns 72.
In its original presentment, or indictment, church leaders charged Bennison with two counts of "conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy" for failing to respond to signs that his brother John was abusing a girl - 14 when the relationship began - in their parish near Los Angeles in the 1970s. Charles Bennison was rector, and John Bennison was his youth minister.
The church also faulted Charles Bennison for failing to inform the girl's parents and church or civil authorities when he learned of the affair, and for not adequately counseling or comforting the girl.
After a four-day trial in July 2008 in Philadelphia - including anguished testimony from the victim and Charles Bennison's insistence that he had handled the affair adequately - a seven-member Court for the Trial of a Bishop ruled unanimously that he be permanently removed, or deposed, as diocesan bishop.
It also ordered him stripped of his ordained status as a bishop and a priest.
During the appeals process, begun in 2009, he retained his ordained status but remained "inhibited," or suspended. The Court for the Review of a Trial of a Bishop, which convened in Wilmington, heard oral arguments in May.
Bennison's attorney, James A. Pabarue, insisted that the statute of limitations had expired. Lawrence White, the church's attorney, was equally emphatic that the statute did not apply to anything related to child sex abuse, including a cover-up.
The appeals court sided with Pabarue and noted that Bennison was never charged with child molestation or immorality.
Although he only learned of the decision Wednesday evening, Bennison was officially restored as diocesan head July 28, when the bishops of the review court signed their ruling.
Bennison has long contended that some diocesan and denominational leaders, unhappy with his leadership, were using the abuse cover-up as a pretext to remove him. "This process should never have begun," he said Thursday.
Many clergy and laity in the diocese publicly complained that he spent millions of diocesan endowment funds in a failed effort to build a retreat center and children's summer camp. His defrocking of the Rev. David Moyer, a conservative rector in Rosemont who publicly criticized his liberal policies and barred him from his parish, was also controversial.
Before the 2007 indictment, all 10 members of the diocesan standing committee and all the deans of the diocese had called for his resignation.
Last month, Pabarue asked the church to drop the charges against his client in view of revelations that a former presiding bishop of the church, Edmond L. Browning, had failed to report or adequately investigate another bishop's sexual abuse of several minor girls.
That scandal began to unfold July 11 when Bishop Sean Rowe, head of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, announced on his diocesan website that nine women had recently told him that the late Bishop Donald Davis - head of that diocese from 1976 to 1991 - had sexually abused them as children.
Browning was told of Davis' abuse in 1993 and the following year asked him to resign from the House of Bishops, refrain from public ministry, and seek counseling, which Davis did. Browning, however, never notified civil authorities or conducted an investigation.
Retired since 1997 and living in Oregon, Browning did not respond to requests for comment.
Bennison said Thursday that his first order of business when returning to his office would be to meet with Michel, the interim diocesan head.
He said he had not yet scheduled a meeting with the standing committee, but praised its work during the last two years and nine months. He was praying, he sai
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From Virtue Online - The Conservative Episcopal News Website:
The Second Coming of Charles E. Bennison Bishop of Pennsylvania COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.orgAugust 7, 2010
When a thoughtful Texas Anglican heard the news that Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison had won a reprieve from an ecclesiastical Court of Appeal over charges that he covered up his brother's sexual abuse of a minor, his response was sharp and to the point, "There's no surprise here - corpses generally do float to the surface to stink the place up [again]."
On August 16, Bennison will regain his Episcopal throne and continue the downward spiral of the diocese. Despite prayers to a God who might or might not be listening to liberal clergy and laity from the Diocese of Pennsylvania, the sociopathic Bennison will take charge and resume his pogrom against the Faith and the faithful in the diocese.
There will however, be one small difference. This time both the remnant orthodox and the majority of liberals hate Bennison enough to want him gone, or, failing that, thwart his desire to deliver death blows to the dwindling orthodox parishes. They might just gang up on him, even with their limited powers, to control the self-destructive desire of Bennison to kill off the remainder of the diocese.
One scenario is that the entire Standing Committee could resign in protest to Bennison's less than joyful return. Instead of the garland or lei around his neck, they could present him with a garland of razor sharp shark teeth in the hope that he will accept it, put it on and be made to feel the pain he has inflicted on others for more than a decade. Instead of Palm Sunday fronds, they could lay down spike strips to stop him from entering Diocesan headquarters.
Their real power however, is to tie down Bennison financially and make sure he isn't allowed to spend designated monies from Trust Funds for undesignated purposes, like spending millions of dollars on another Camp Wapiti fiasco. If he does so, they could bring another presentment against him. It should be noted here that Bennison has survived two presentment charges and clearly has the capacity to walk through a minefield blindfolded and carrying a bottle of Chateau neuf du pape in one hand and a plate of Brie in the other.
It is not without its significance that diocesan attorney Michael Rehill weighed in and said Bennison took one of the wealthiest dioceses in the Episcopal Church and made it one of the poorest.
Of course this could backfire. Bennison could play the martyr and demand that the richer parishes like St. David's in Wayne or Good Samaritan in Paoli cough up more money to support his "program". If they don't he could inhibit their clergy, just like Bishop Robert Gepert in Western Michigan has done with the Vestry of Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids.
Never underestimate the power of bishops. Many of them think that, like God, they are omnipotent with almost equal powers. (One bishop once told me he wanted to be a bishop because he would be closer to Jesus at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. I politely told him - I think I was polite - that perhaps the char lady sitting at the end of the pew who put in her $2.00 in the plate each Sunday might be sitting closer to Jesus "in that day". ) Funny thing is he didn't like that answer. "We want to be at your right hand," cried two disciples, and we know how that ended. Bennison, on the other hand, will be waiting for an invitation that will never come.
The diocese will once again be inflicted with the Deconstructionist gospel of John Shelby Spong. This time they will be forced to hear it in a cathedral that could double as a Mosque anytime Muslims should take it over, or, in a moment of sanguinity, Bennison offers it to them as a sign of future ecumenical expectations.
A leopard cannot change it spots, so the cliché goes and a sociopath like Bennison won't change his ways unless he is struck by lightning on the Schuylkill Expressway. That is not going to happen. We have been given the testimony of the apostles and prophets (see the Book of Hebrews) and Bennison is not the slightest bit interested in what they have to say.
After all, it was he who said that men wrote the Bible and could therefore rewrite it. Perhaps Charles (AKA Chuckles) could help in the re-writing of the Bible and thus earn himself a place in the annals of Biblical history. As an addendum, he could add his very own personal Visigoth Rite alongside Spong's 12 Theses. Oh, what joy.
Bennison has likened his own second coming to the crucifixion of our Lord, an event he can barely acknowledge as historical and with no salvific purpose. "I think I have shared in Christ's crucifixion" he opined to ENS in a moment of touching humility.
One should point out that Bennison's crucifixion came with full salary and benefits while he did nothing except talk to his lawyers and plan his next strategy for reinstatement. Will he sue now for damages, costs etc.? A crucifixion without nails and full reinstatement at the Union League Club now awaits the Crucified One. "Gin and tonic, waiter and hold the ice." Who the hell needs bread and wine?
"I am less anxious about the church's future than I was when I first became bishop," said Bennison on learning the news he had beaten the odds on favorite for certain ecclesiastical death. Such humility.
Oh, but you can be sure that the anxiety levels of priests like David L. Moyer of Good Shepherd, Rosemont and Fr. Eddy Rix of All Saints, Wynnewood, are rising considerably on news that the "ol' Chuck is back" and he is carrying a load of TEC canons ready to fire at anyone who opposes him. Moyer already faces a property grab by the Standing Committee who have filed suit against him.
Now that the Litigious One has returned, Moyer can bet on the heat being turned up to full white-hot. With the Dennis Canon enshrined more highly than Holy Writ in TEC, (it appears to be almost as infallible and inerrant), there is little doubt that Bennison will regain the parish and toss Moyer to the wolves. The irony needs to be shouted from the housetops.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori had no difficulty removing Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan (without a trial) and stripping him of his sacerdotal powers, accusing him of "abandoning the communion of the (Episcopal) church" but she can't get rid of Bennison.
It should not be forgotten that it was Bennison who likened the growth of the Anglican Church in Africa to the growth of the Nazi Party. Over the next six years of his ecclesiastical reign (he's 66 and can serve till he is 72), he will make the diocese look like the last days of the Third Reich.
What has brought conservatives and revisionists together now is their common hatred of Bennison. With many conservatives and all of the liberals voting for Bennison, they have very little moral high ground. They could have elected the Rev. David Thomas, an evangelical, but turned him down for the smiling, vacant looking Bennison who conveniently forgot to tell them all about his dubious past. Thomas was not the sharpest nail in the box, but he was orthodox. He has since gone to be with His maker.
The Standing Committee, still in shock, has invited Episcopalians to gather at the Cathedral at 4:30 p.m. this Sunday afternoon, August 8, for Evening Prayer, a time of open conversation and an opportunity to share thoughts and feelings. The Dean, Judith Sullivan will lead worship and Assisting Bishop Rodney Michel will guide conversation. This is a study in futility. They have reaped what they have sown and now they must face the whirlwind. It will be Apocalypse Now.
Bennison will shortly be back in the saddle and the diocese will soon learn the bitter truth that Hell hath no fury like a Bennison scorned and the equal truth that is there is no place to run and no place to hide. The orthodox are history. The diocese is doomed.
