BishopAccountability.org
	Bishop Denies He Saw Brother with Girl Associated Press, carried in Morning Call June 12, 2008 http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/state/all-a5_bishop.6456317jun12,0,633657.story An Episcopal bishop accused of covering up abuse in the 1970s testified Wednesday that he never saw anything inappropriate between his brother and the teenage victim. Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. is accused of concealing sexual abuse by his brother, John Bennison, then a lay minister at a California church where Bennison was rector. Bennison, who now leads the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, testified at his church trial that he immediately confronted his brother after hearing a rumor about the impropriety. His brother, who was about to leave the California parish where he worked as a youth counselor, denied having sexual contact with the girl. "I was angry at him and I said, 'Get your stuff and get out of here,"' Charles Bennison testified. He said he believed the rumor to be true but had no proof, so he didn't speak about it to the girl, her family, John Bennison's wife, or anyone else because he was trying to protect them and the church from scandal. "I didn't want to embarrass her or shame her. That would be a serious charge against a high school girl," he testified. "People wouldn't have seen it [in the 1970s] as abuse. They would have seen it as immoral behavior on her part." Bennison, 64, was formally "inhibited" by the diocese in November and ordered to "cease all episcopal, ministerial and canonical acts." A church indictment, called a presentment, charges that Bennison failed to investigate his brother's actions and protect the victim. The presentment also charges that Bennison knew about the abuse but didn't halt the 1974 ordination of his brother, who resigned from the priesthood in 2006. Charles Bennison's attorneys said the church had no guidelines in the 1970s for reporting sexual abuse and that Bennison handled the situation as best he knew how. After his brother -- by then ordained as a priest -- departed St. Mark's Church in Upland, Calif., in 1975 for a post hours away in Santa Barbara, Bennison said he thought the "problem was solved." The abuse continued for months afterward, however, but Bennison said he had no concrete proof of wrongdoing until after it had ended. "I had no idea about the depth and breadth of his perversion and the pattern he was stuck in," Bennison testified. He claimed that he only knew for certain about his brother's actions in fall 1977, when informed by his brother's soon-to-be ex-wife. The victim was 19 years old then, and Bennison believed it was up to her to tell her parents. She did so one year later. Bennison said he had no recollection of the victim's testimony that when she was 15, he twice walked in on her and his brother during sexual encounters, only to turn and leave. "I wasn't looking for it. I wasn't suspicious about it," he said. "There's nothing that I saw that would have indicated that to me."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.