By Mary Frances Schjonberg
Episcopal Life
August 18 2010
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124099_ENG_HTM.htm
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[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison said Aug. 17 that since he returned to the diocesan offices the day before he has "concentrated on listening."
"I have learned a great deal, and my listening has been very productive," Bennison said in a statement emailed to Episcopal News Service by Ceisler Media and Issue Advocacy, a Philadelphia media relations firm.
The bishop said that he met with diocesan Assisting Bishop Rodney Michel and asked him to remain in his position "indefinitely."
"I am pleased to report that he has agreed, and we are already planning how we will divide our work," Bennison said.
Michel has served as assisting bishop in Pennsylvania since early in 2009.
Bennison said that he had "a frank and open discussion about issues affecting the diocese" with the executive committee of the Standing Committee on Aug. 17.
"I complimented them on the work they have done in the diocese for the past three years," Bennison said. "They are also pleased that Bishop Michel is staying with us."
"At the end of the meeting, they asked how they could help me, and I told them that we need to work together in a collaborative manner," Bennison said. "I also asked them to pray for me so that we can move forward together to bring healing and reconciliation to the Diocese.
The bishop reported that he has met with diocesan staff as well.
Bennison's return to work, which came amid calls for his retirement or resignation, was prompted by the church's Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop's decision overturning a lower court's finding that the bishop ought to be deposed (removed) from ordained ministry because he had engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy. The review court agreed with one of the lower court's two findings of misconduct, but said that Bennison could not be deposed because the charge was barred by the church's statute of limitations.
The review court said that Bennison failed to respond properly in the mid-1970s when he was rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Upland, California, and learned that his brother, John, who worked initially as a lay youth minister in the parish, had been having a sexual relationship with a member of the youth group that began when she was 14 years old. John Bennison was later ordained a priest but deposed in 1977 for an unrelated offense. He was restored to the priesthood in 1980, but was forced to renounce his orders again in 2006 when accusations of his abuse became public.
The decision by the Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop is here.
Bennison had not functioned as the diocesan bishop since October 2007 when Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori inhibited him from exercising his ordained ministry when the church's Title IV Review Committee formally accused him of the inaction. The inhibition expired with the review court's decision.
The Standing Committee, which had been the ecclesiastical authority in the diocese during Bennison's inhibition, has been at odds with Bennison since the mid-2000s over concerns about how he managed the diocese's assets and other issues. More than once in the past, it has called for Bennison's resignation.
As Bennison returned to the diocesan offices in downtown Philadelphia on Aug. 16, the Standing Committee said in a letter to the diocese that "We do not believe that Bishop Bennison has the trust of the clergy and lay leaders necessary for him to be an effective pastor and leader of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, nor that he can regain or rebuild the trust that he has lost or broken."
"We believe that it would be in the best interest of the diocese that Bishop Bennison not resume his exercise of authority here," the committee said in a letter to the diocese.
Bennison, 66, said Aug. 5 that he planned to continue to serve the diocese as its bishop. He noted during a news conference that church canon allows for a bishop to serve until age 72, and said that he will continue as bishop "if it seems appropriate and in the best interest of the church" until that time.
The Standing Committee's Aug. 16 letter listed a series of accomplishments during the past nearly three years and called on Bennison to honor that work. The committee said it will continue to nurture what it called the "fragile web" of relationships that it has been weaving and is "committed to ensuring the spiritual, emotional and physical safety of all within this diocese and all whom we seek to serve in the name of Christ."
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