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	Pennsylvania: Trial Date Set for Bennison Retired Pennsylvania Bishop Allen L. Bartlett Becomes Assisting Bishop Pro Tempore By Mary Frances Schjonberg Episcopal Life March 3, 2008 http://www.episcopal-life.org/81803_95404_ENG_HTM.htm The trial of inhibited Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. will begin June 9 in Philadelphia. A February 29 news release posted on the diocese's website said the trial will be open to the public. The location has yet to be decided. The release outlines the procedure for the trial and its possible outcomes. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori inhibited Bennison on October 31 after 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 a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was also married at the time, according to the presentment. The bishop is accused of not taking any steps to end the relationship, not providing proper pastoral care to the girl, not investigating whether she needed medical care, taking three years to notify the girl's parents, not reporting his brother to anyone, not investigating whether his brother was sexually involved with any other parishioners or other children, and seeking no advice on how to proceed. The presentment says Charles Bennison reacted "passively and self-protectively." The second count of the presentment accuses Charles Bennison of continuing to fail in his duties until the fall of 2006. John Bennison became ordained during this time and the bishop is accused of not preventing his brother's ordination, or his ultimately successful application to be reinstated as a priest after having renounced his orders in 1977, or his desire to transfer from the Diocese of Los Angeles to the Diocese of California. John Bennison was forced in 2006 to renounce his orders again when news of his abuse became public. Here are the complete texts of the presentment and the inhibition. Meanwhile, retired Pennsylvania Bishop Allen L. Bartlett has become assisting bishop pro tempore while the diocesan Standing Committee continues its search for an assisting bishop. Bartlett, who preceded Bennison and served the diocese from 1987 to 1998, will work three days a week, according to a news release from the Standing Committee. His primary areas of responsibilities will be pastoral care to the clergy and the administration of the diocese's Church House, the Standing Committee said. "My plate was at least half full with things I enjoy doing, and the joys of retirement are not lightly relinquished," Bartlett said in a letter to the diocese. "I reflected, consulted, and said my prayers. I decided to say yes for up to six months, because I love this diocese and its people, it is in trouble, and it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Bartlett told the diocese that he would "not engage in conversation about the merits or demerits of my previous episcopacy nor that of my successor." "My focus in this present ministry will be on the present and the future, not the past," he wrote. Also, retired Pennsylvania Bishop Suffragan Franklin Taylor is helping with parish visitations and retired Diocese of Western Michigan Bishop Edward Lee is overseeing the diocese's campus ministries as well as the ordination process in the diocese.
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