The 227th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, by a vote of 341-134, has asked Bishop Charles Bennison Jr. to “resign immediately.”
A resolution containing the request also said that Bennison “does not have the trust of the people and clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania to continue to serve as their bishop.”
Bennison made no comment on the resolution after it passed.
Passage of the resolution came hours after Bishop Paul Marshall of the neighboring Diocese of Bethlehem wrote to Bennison and the convention, calling on him to resign and suggesting that convention participants urge Bennison to leave.
“You need to realize, I humbly submit, that you are the premier diocese of the Episcopal Church in this Commonwealth, and arguably (along with Connecticut) the mother diocese of our church in this country,” Marshall wrote. “It matters to the rest of us, and to the world, how you get along. It is not a confession of sin to admit that things have not worked out well, but it is surely a matter of empirical evidence.”
Great heavens; what delusion oppresses +Pennsylvania. May God deliver him, the diocese he serves, and all of us from such oppression.