MILLSTONES

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

It may not realize it but the Episcopal Organization has a serious problem on its hands and that problem’s name is Charles Bennison. The witnesses in Chuckles’ first trial have written an open letter to the people of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the bishops and anyone else who’s interested, selections from which follow:

We were shaken, but not undone, by the reversal of the verdict of the Trial Court by the Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop. We have had, after all, disappointing experiences with bishops, spanning three decades, and we have been routinely discouraged with their responses. We are particularly concerned that Bishop Charles E. Bennison stated publicly at trial that he still believes that he acted appropriately in this matter and would take the same approach again if called to do so. He has learned nothing.

The light of truth shone in the verdict of the Trial Court. They had the courage to listen to our testimonies with open hearts. Always with spiritual presence, they acted with utmost integrity and diligence. How brave they were. Their landmark ruling gave us hope that the Episcopal Church could be a guiding beacon to all people everywhere who are affected in some way by clergy sexual abuse and the complicit behaviors of those bishops who again and again choose to protect their own, instead of protecting their flock.

Now the Trial Court judgment has been overturned by the Court of Review. In an incredulous turn of events, Bishop Bennison has been restored to the fold. To our great sorrow, this ruling illustrates that we cannot assume that clergy will protect the vulnerable or that our churches are safe sanctuaries. Episcopalians, be watchful for signs of sexual misconduct and abuse of power. Do not blindly think you are safe.

Along our journey, we have written impassioned letters to bishops and met with many of them face to face, only to hear the hollow refrain, “our hands are tied.” Now we have heard from the Court of Review that their hands, too, are tied, by their narrow interpretation of the canonical letter of the law regarding the statute of limitations. Yet in the same breath, they have upheld the verdict of Charles Bennison being found guilty of “conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.” It is time to untie.

The statute of limitations regarding sexual abuse needs to be removed entirely. The crime of complicity and cover-up needs to be regarded as equal in seriousness to that committed by the perpetrator because it allows the abuse to continue. Further, in matters of clergy sexual abuse, there needs to be a church-wide mechanism that supersedes the autonomy of individual diocesan bishops. At stake are the safety of the people and the credibility of the Episcopal Church as a whole.

Needless to say, read the whole moving thing.

Can anything be done? The Anglican Curmudgeon thinks so.

Bishop Bennison, as stated, was found guilty of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy. Such conduct must also violate his Oath of Conformity, as well — since it is arguably (though only arguably) worse than the conduct of the clergy who chose to realign with another province.

So the question arises: if the Presiding Bishop can derecognize the clergy members of the standing committees in each of three dioceses for violating their oaths of conformity, why did she not derecognize Bishop Bennison for the same violation, and declare the see of Pennsylvania vacant?

The difficulty here, of course, is that somebody would have to care enough to put all this into motion. I invented the word squishops for a reason; I don’t know of any current member of the House of Bishops with the stones to put this into motion.

Ideally, Chuckles would realize what he had done, have some kind of empathy with the lives he helped destroy, feel horror about what he hadn’t done, repent, realize that he was now disqualified from any position of church leadership and resign. But since he still doesn’t think he did anything wrong, that’s not going to happen.

The letter-writers are quite right. In a situation like this one, hiding behind cold legalism is completely unacceptable. Katharine Jefferts Schori has shown canonical creativity in the past and needs to do so again, perhaps taking the Curmudgeon’s suggestion, perhaps trying some other approach.

Because if she doesn’t, the ability of the Episcopal Organization to ever again speak authoritatively about this issue is dead, dried up and blown away.

UPDATE: Roman Catholics? Once again. You’re welcome.

Charles Bennison was accused of failing to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual abuse of a minor leveled against his brother John. In the 1970s, John was a youth minister training for the priesthood on the staff of Charles Bennison’s Upland, Calif., parish.

The list of those who knew about the allegations reads like a bill of indictment against the church. There is no apparent evidence that secular authorities were ever notified, and the appeals court’s 39-page ruling lays out in precise legal prose what has long been suspected about the lack of reporting on sexual abuse by many church officials:

Los Angeles Bishop Robert Rusack (now dead) learned of the accusations from John Bennison’s ex-wife when Rusack restored John to the priesthood in 1979.

In 1993, the victim’s mother detailed the allegations in a letter to Frederick Borsch, then the bishop of Los Angeles. She copied a number of other bishops and clergy, including priest Margo Maris, an advocate for abuse victims. To his credit, Borsch set up meetings between church authorities and the victim’s family.

As the appeals court noted, the letter “included ‘the part that Chuck (Appellant) played’ and told of his knowledge of the events and his failure to tell the minor female’s parents.”

Soon after that, the victim’s mother wrote to Edmond L. Browning, then the presiding bishop, to tell him of the alleged abuse and Charles Bennison’s alleged role in a cover-up.

Browning is now retired, but his name recently surfaced in an unrelated case. It is alleged that he did not inform secular authorities when he learned in 1993 of allegations against Donald Davis, the former bishop of the Northwestern Pennsylvania diocese. Davis, who died in 2007, was accused of abusing several minor girls in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

By the time Charles Bennison was a bishop candidate in the Diocese of Pennsylvania in 1996, a lot of people wielding power in the Episcopal Church knew of the serious allegations against him and his brother - and they chose to keep quiet. This information could have been decisive in the selection of a diocesan leader.

Allegations of such collusion have, with good reason, long roiled dioceses in the Roman Catholic Church, fueling accusations that church leaders are more interested in protecting their own interests, and those of their colleagues, than in truly protecting victims and prosecuting abusers.

Regrettably, this appears to also have been the case with a number of spiritual leaders in the Episcopal Church, men and women charged with shepherding the weakest and most vulnerable members of the flock.

Will the media pursue this story and any others like it as vigorously as it has pursued similar stories in the Roman Catholic Church? What are you, high?

I’ve said over and over that the reason the Episcopalians get the run that they do is that they’re what the media wants the Roman Catholic Church, a Christian church with actual influence in the world, to become. So stories like this one don’t advance the narrative.

UPDATE: Charles Bennison, a uniter, not a divider. Both Anglican left and Anglican right agree that Chuckles is a sociopathic douchebag.

The presentment alleged that Charles Bennison engaged in Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Clergy because he twice found his brother in a compromising position with the same girl and did nothing about it and even after he had evidence of what was going on between his brother and the girl he still did nothing. He didn’t alert any of the other parents or youth group members of his brother’s conduct. Nor did he offer the girl or her family any pastoral care.

Maggie Thompson, the ex-wife of John Bennison, was instrumental in sharing information that resulted in the presentment. She underwent grueling hours of testimony at the original trial, and was present along with other persons mentioned in the trial briefs at the hearing held in May by the Court of Review.

The Court of Review, while acknowledging that Charles Bennison was guilty of Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Clergy, overturned the conviction because the statute of limitations had expired.

The victims of the Brothers Bennison were victimized once. Now they’ve been victimized yet again by the judgment of the Court of Review. Fortunately, John Bennison is no longer a priest. Unfortunately, Charles Bennison is free to once again resume the reigns of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

The Court of Review had some startling things to say, as well, about statutes of limitations. “The statute of limitations is an important protection that is essential to the integrity of the judicial process, both secular and ecclesiastical.” Later, the judges noted that “the delay [that results from a statute of limitations] may work to the disadvantage of the accused (emphasis mine) because memories dim, documents get lost or destroyed, and important witnesses die.” To use the Court’s own words, this is clearly erroneous.

Anyone who’s been the least bit involved in sexual abuse cases knows that statutes of limitations protect only the perps. It is the accused that hope for dimmed memories, lost or destroyed documents and dead witnesses. Fear, shame and silence become the allies of those who abuse the most vulnerable among us, our children. For victims, the best statute of limitations is no statute of limitations at all.

All this suggests that if Mrs. Schori figures out a way to show Bennison the door, nobody other than Chuckles is going to complain about it.