Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on October 31 inhibited Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison from all ordained ministry pending a judgment of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop.
The Title IV Review Committee issued a presentment for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy against Bennison on October 28.
The two counts of the presentment center on accusations that Bennison, when he was rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upland, California, did not respond properly after learning sometime in 1973 that his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was also married at the time, according to the presentment.
Wow, it is fascinating to contemplate the possibility that in failing to get Bennison to quit over his mismanagement of PA that the Standing Committee chose to double the stakes and prepare presentments based on Bennison’s pastoral failings. This case will make everything that has passed in PA to date look like a kindergarten sandbox quarrel.
With witnesses from several states across the continent, it will be expensive as well.
With presentments coming soon, presumably, against Pittsburgh and other bishops, it’s going to be all lawyers, all the time, for the forseeable future.
This one was far too long in coming.
During a recent conversation with my bishop (ATL) I made mention of the fact that the HOB seems to lack the ability to discipline itself. The bishop remarked that there is going to be a lot more discipline in the HOB in the near future. Maybe this is a beginning.
3. Shumanbean:
“….there is going to be a lot more discipline in the HOB in the near future.”
I would have been encouraged by such an idea thirty years ago. Now I just laugh. Polity without repentance is useless.
Is this the beginning of the Great Purge? First Bishop Bennison is inhibited, not for his errors as Bishop of Pennsylvania but for his errors in dealing with his misbehaving brother. Then Bishop Duncan is threatened with prosecution for abandoning the communion. What next?
The article said …
[blockquote] … his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. [/blockquote]
This is, by far, the kindest way possible to describe the situation. I’m sure that the teenage-girl’s parents didn’t describe this as an “affair”.
I didn’t realize the PB could inhibit her fellow peers?
I was just re-reading the Presentment Charges against the Pennsylvania Bishop, in the context of “Where do we go next” and oddly enough, I have found that 815 has managed to LOWER my standards and sense of outrage. What that man did, if true, allowing an illicit affair to go on between an adult male and minor female, while the man was married, should sicken and disgust me.
Frankly, when I hold it in the context of what is SANCTIONED by 815 and GC for Bishops, it didn’t look all that bad. Against a backdrop of same-sex relationships, sex outside of marriage, Muslim Clergy, lies, slander, hypocracy, punitive lawsuits, sleezy politics, denying the Divinity of Christ, burning down Scripture, destroying lives, churches, families, the plight of this 14 year old girl seems to fit right in with our Lovely, Permissive, Big Tent. I’m having trouble understanding their outrage on this issue, in consideration with what they let slide on a daily basis, and ENDORSE beyond that.
How horrible is that? Pray for me on this one……The Devil is knocking on the door….thanks to 815 for giving him the key…
Struggling today to KTF!…mrb
#7 Yes, with consent of the Standing Committee.
Aren’t we forgetting the lawsuit by the State of Maryland…….the Camp Wapiti affair? Bennison has a lot more to be concerned about, other that simply being inhibited. Just thought I’d mention that.
First thought- Is Bennison just the token liberal sacrificial lamb so that 815 can get on with the PB’s expressed agenda of purging the Church of the orthodox?
Second, concur with Don Gander, this “resolve” is 30 (or 40) years too late. What about Grein, Doss, etc.?
Is it possible that the girl’s family is now threatening to sue TEC because of the actions of the Bennison brothers 34 years ago?
If that is what’s going on, then the PB’s inhibition would be part of TEC’s defense, that ‘we dealt with it as soon as it was known to the PB’s office’. Chancellor Beers would probably push for this move to cover TEC. I have a hunch there’s a good bit more going on here than simply covering for his brother all those years ago.
I am the (former..) 14 year-old victims brother; my family is NOT suing the Bennisons or the Episcopal church; I just wanted to make that clear. With a trial likely, there’s not much else that I should say that I haven’t already said here and elsewhere.
Andy