The Standing Committee has been advised by the Episcopal Church Attorney that the Ecclesiastical Trial of the Right Reverend Charles E. Bennison, Jr., on the Presentment dated October 29, 2007 on charges filed by the then Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, has been scheduled for June 9, 2008. The trial will be conducted in Philadelphia and will be open to the public. The exact location of the trial has not yet been determined.
There is also at least one civil trial in progress. Does anyone know how that goes?
Don
Don, David Virtue has a piece on the civil trial. Look in the “Exclusives: News Analysis by David Virtue” section. There are apparently 155 charges including fraud, collusion, concealment, bad faith, denial of a church trial for Fr. Moyer despite protests by the Anglo-Catholic priest, his congregation, numerous bishops throughout the U.S., Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, Archbishops from the Anglican Communion, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Anglican Communion.
The Moyer v. Bennison trial is skedded for May but has been postponed several times since last September owing to the precedence of criminal proceedings over civil suits such as this one. It is thought likely that it may be postponed yet again, although the postponement dates seem to be getting closer and closer.
If I might add a P.S….the curious thing about the Bennison presentment to me is that it would seem that there were a lot of other people in the church who were in a position to stop the activities that led to the presentment, but no other charges appear to have been filed against any such parties.