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	Inside Today's Bulletin Episcopal Bishop Bennison Takes the Stand By Bradley Vasoli The Bulletin June 12, 2008 http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19767314&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8 Philadelphia - Episcopal Bishop Charles Bennison, of Pennsylvania, took the witness stand yesterday in his ecclesiastical trial and asserted he did not initially know that his brother, a priest, had sex with a minor. Bp. Bennison's trial will determine whether he can remain as the presiding clergyman in the five-county region. It concerns whether he violated the canons of the church by failing to report alleged knowledge of his brother John's adulterous affair with an underage female parishioner at St. Mark's Church in Upland, Calif., in the early 1970s. Charles was rector of St. Mark's at the time, and he hired his younger brother, a seminary student, to train Sunday school teachers and head the parish youth group. In 1971, the 24-year-old seminarian began his sexual advances toward Martha Alexis, a 14-year-old high school student, and intercourse eventually became frequent. She succeeded in ending the relationship after strenuous effort in 1974, before leaving Upland for college in Los Angeles. The younger Bennison was, by that time, an ordained priest and later served in a parish in Clayton, Calif., while the elder would serve in other dioceses and become Southeastern Pennsylvania's Bishop in 1996. Charles did not mention his brother's sex with Ms. Alexis during the vetting process before his consecration and only acknowledged the relationship to the girl's family in 1978, when she divulged the matter. Bp. Bennison maintains that he learned of the sexual relationship the prior year when John's wife, Maggie Bennison (now Thompson) told him she knew of it. Charles said that he refrained from mentioning the abuse to the victim's parents out of concern for her confidentiality and that he does not recall he "walked in" on his brother and the girl as Church attorneys contend he did. "I wasn't looking for [evidence of abuse]," the Bishop said. "I wasn't suspicious about it. There's nothing I saw that would have indicated that to me." Bp. Bennison did hear from vestry member Ann Pottorff in 1975 that her son, a high-school student and parishioner, reported to her that John had an ongoing sexual relationship with the girl, but the elder Bennison said his brother had denied the affair to him and that no one substantiated the allegation. "To me it was an unfounded, unproven rumor," he said. Mrs. Thompson testified yesterday that John Bennison explicitly and repeatedly attempted to persuade her that their marriage should be an "open relationship" and that she abided at least five other of her husband's extramarital affairs. She said John defended his affair with Ms. Alexis in religious terms. "He had a constant litany of reasons for why it was okay," she said. "He would describe it as a 'gift from God.'" The two divorced in 1977. Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us
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