W.va. Catholics React to Bishop Abuse Allegations

NECN
April 18, 2012

www.necn.com/04/18/12/WVa-Catholics-react-to-bishop-abuse-alle/landing_nation.html?&apID=08cec2f7ecf14bf6a447c5e2a3c50c49

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Roman Catholics in West Virginia reacted with disbelief and shock Wednesday after a witness at a clergy-abuse trial in Philadelphia testified the leader of West Virginia's Catholics committed sexual abuse.

Monsignor Edward Sadie, rector of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Charleston, said he finds the allegations against Bishop Michael Bransfield "impossible to believe."

"Everything I know about him, he's a perfect gentlemen and he's been very thorough in seeing to it that we observe all the (child protection) procedures that come up," Sadie said.

A man testified that a priest raped him at a New Jersey home owned by Bransfield and that his accused abuser told him the bishop also sexually abused a boy. The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they have been sexually abused.

The testimony came Wednesday at the trial of the Rev. James Brennan, who's accused in a 1996 child-sex assault.

Bransfield, who became a bishop in 2004, graduated from St. Charles Borromeo seminary in 1971, a year after Stanley Gana. The witness Wednesday told jurors that Gana abused him throughout high school on trips to Disney World, Niagara Falls and at Bransfield's beach house in Brigantine, N.J.

Bransfield is not charged with any crimes. The Diocese of Wheeling-Central declined comment.

Outside St. John University Parish in Morgantown, a priest and several people heading to afternoon Mass either declined to comment or said they knew nothing about the allegations.

Margery Webb, 20, of Charleston, was shocked by the news as she arrived for Mass but said she hadn't heard anything about it.

"I've heard stuff like this about Catholic priests before and it really is a terrifying thought to think that somebody who's supposed to be in the priesthood — sort of a leader in the community in a way — would take advantage of their parishioners," she said.