An ecclesiastical trial court has refused to dismiss charges against Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison or grant him a new trial on those charges.
In a September 24 decision released to the public the next day, the church’s Court for the Trial of a Bishop said that “the newly discovered evidence is not material to the evidence on which the court concluded that [Bennison] failed to respond appropriately once he knew that his brother had sexually abused a minor.”
Pennsylvania’s diocesan standing committee issued a short statement September 25 outlining the decision and saying “we continue to keep in our prayers all who have been affected by this trial.”
Chuck Bennison (as he was known then) was my parish priest before he hired his predacious brother. I admired him because of his preaching style–how he could preach from the aisle while clutching a scrap of paper with a few notes–and for his taking seminary students under his wings and teaching them how to imitate his style.
But then the agressive fundraising campaign began. Bennison wanted to increase the parish budget by a hundred grand so he could hire a youth pastor. (A lot of moolah in 1974) During the ‘stewardship’ campaign we were told from the pulpit that if we weren’t tithing we shouldn’t consider ourselves members of the church.
No one, except perhaps the vestry, was told that this was so Bennison could hire his brother. By the time he was hired, my family and I had already left in disgust.
It seems we made the right decision.