Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr., 64, still wears a purple vest, a pectoral cross, and an engraved gold ring – symbols of his stature as leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.
But tomorrow morning this white-haired and controversial prelate, suspended from office in the fall, will step off an elevator at the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel and into a Court for the Trial of a Bishop.
There, nine judges from around the country will consider whether Bennison improperly concealed his brother John’s sexual abuse of a minor decades ago, and decide if he may continue as head of the five-county, 55,000-member diocese.
“The allegations are sensational,” his lawyer, James Pabarue, said in a lengthy interview Thursday. But they are “half-truths,” he added, concocted by parties in the diocese eager for Bennison’s ouster.
This man has been a disgrace to churchmen of all stripes and has lost the love, confidence and trust of the great majority of his diocese. The diocese of Pennyslvania has suffered enough because of this man and I hope he will be stripped of every shred of his priesthood. If he had any nobility of spirit he would have stepped down long ago, apologized to his diocese and spent a few years in a monastary in reperation for his foul deeds and as a sign of his desire to seek to be made spiritually whole again. I pray that he may find forgiveness, admit his culpability in gross mismanagement and one day, far in the future find restoration and happiness in some other ministry but never again as a bishop. May God have mercy on his soul and lead him from arrogance to contrition.
And just exactly what ARE those “half truths,” may we ask? I’d LOVE to hear his explanations.
Let’s hear what the other half of those half truths are!
#1: Hey, cut him some slack! He’s a lib’ral, doncherno! He supports all The Right Causes. Drove out the fundies (well, most of them).
The only slack I will cut him is that he was unable to damage, diminish or destroy what is, in my opinion, the finest Episcopal church in the United States: St. Clement’s in Philadelphia. For those here who may not know of this church, STOP what ever you are doing and take a look at the beauty of holiness as it exists nowhere else on earth: http://www.s-clements.org/flash.html