A controversial ruling to reinstate a Pennsylvanian bishop includes a tie to Saginaw.
Bishop Todd Ousley of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan, which includes land east of Interstate 75 from Genesse to Alpena counties, was a member of the church’s court of review that, earlier this month, reversed a 2008 decision by a lower court that removed Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison as bishop.
Bennison’s brother, John Bennison, was youth pastor of the church where Charles Bennison was a priest in the 1970s in California. John Bennison, who later became a priest, is accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl in the parish. John Bennison was forced to renounce his priesthood in 2006 when accusations became public. His brother was removed as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania in 2008 for his inaction in the 1970s.
If the statute of limitations on a canonical offense has expired, the only thing they could do is let him off. My question is: why was this trial, with all its attendant publicity and enormous cost, put on in the first place, and why didn’t Chuck’s lawyers point out the expiration of the statute of limitations on day one? I’m not saying that he’s not guilty of the offenses, of course. Just criticizing the process. Was the just put on for publicity purposes, knowing that he’s get off in the end? I’d have got him out merely for mismanagement of the diocese and heresy.
The problem that I would have if I were in his diocese is that he said he would do the same thing again today. In other words, he doesn’t think he made a mistake. That is troubling!!!
I think all the fears that Chuck would do the same thing again are inaccurate. Much of what he said was true. I do believe he was singled out for punishment for something which was rife in churches at the time. As one who was in seminary at the time his offenses took place I remember quite clearly how it seemed that lots of clergy were fooling around back then, just as gurus and teachers in other religions were with their students. It seemed -and seems- to me that students model for the teachers, just as the reverse is also true. What the ‘reality’ is today was different in the seventies and early eighties. Christian teaching, morals, ethics, values, are the same as they have ever been, but the time period from the sixties until, say, 1983, seems to me to have been a massive psychiatric breakdown in our culture from which we are just beginning to recover. At seminary I had NO teaching, neither intellectual nor by example, on elementary sexual morality. Everyone looked the other way. Most of the other seminaries belonging to other denominations were just as bad. At mine one of my profs was widely believed to be having an affair with another employee. One of my instructor was an alcoholic. Another teacher had left his wife and was married to a former student. And there was much more. The whole thing was extremely deranging. I felt that then, and looking back on the experience I still think that it is remarkable that anyone escaped with their sanity and faith intact.
There was, I think, a general breakdown of morality in beginning in the 60s, and not just in the realm of sexual behavior. I could give a couple examples I know of of the notion that “one’s word is one’s bond” in the realm of business. One in which a contractor whose bid in the 50s was way too low because of an error, who took the loss and built the project at the bid price. The other in which a gas pipeline executive pledged reserves at a going price and when the going price shot up in the 70s sold the reserves to others at the much higher price and told the folks who had bought the gas it was gone. (I think the latter is in prison now for his involvement in the Iraqi bread for oil scandal.
I also think the current argument that what Bennison (and others) were about was part of the sitz-im-leben of the times is also morally vacuous. It is also be a solemn warning to those in TEC today who are rewriting Christian morality because of our modern, more enlightened sitz-im-leben of the 21st century. There is a lesson here to be learned.
I was troubled when as a senior priest in TEC I had to attend a “training” telling clergy to keep their zippers zipped. What was discouraging, beside the presenters having to tell clergy the obvious, but that the training was due to the intervention of the Church Insurance Corporation concerned about the big liability suits rather than the bishops teaching the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as received. TEC was more concerned with the dollars than the spiritual health of the body of Christ.
Well, said, Sept! I could not agree with you more strongly.
Senior Priest,
Chips, Dip and Sherry People.
I guess you knew them also, Rob.
Regarding #1’s question. From what I read the issue of the statue of limitations expiration was raised by Bennison’s attorney from the beginning, but apparently the canons provide for an exception in sexual abuse cases, so they proceeded with all of the trials, appeals, reviews, etc.
The final court review decided that the exception should only be applied when the defendant was charged with actual sexual abuse, which was not the case with Bennison. He was charged with a coverup.
Thanks for the info. It’s very helpful!
You’re welcome!