Wheeling-charleston Bishop: "I Have Never Sexually Abused Anyone"

WTOV
April 19, 2012

http://www.wtov9.com/news/news/wheeling-charleston-bishop-i-have-never-sexually-a/nMc4M/

The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston bishop issued a statement Thursday stating he never sexually abused anyone.

The statement comes a day after a man testified under oath during a clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia that he was raped at a home owned by current Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield. The witness also testified he was told the bishop also sexually abused a boy.

The 48-year-old witness said he saw Bransfield bring several boys to a farm owned by now-defrocked priest Stanley Gana. The witness says Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with one of them.

The man said Gana raped him for years, including at Bransfield's beach house. The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually abused.

Another witness has testified under oath that Bransfield had a lewd conversation with him.

Bransfield's diocese called the trial "a circus" and says prosecutors are trying "to smear individuals not on trial."

Roman Catholics in West Virginia reacted with disbelief and shock. Monsignor Edward Sadie, rector of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Charleston, says he finds the allegations against Bransfield "impossible to believe."

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"I have been deeply saddened by the priest child abuse scandal that has been connected to a handful of my former colleagues and friends from St. Charles Seminary. Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims.

To now be unfairly included in that group and to hear the horrific allegations that are being made of me is unbelievable and shocking. As a native of Roxboro, I consider Philadelphia my home. I have openly been an advocate for the eradication of the abusive behavior of priests in every diocese, and have demonstrated this in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, where I now live and serve.

I have never sexually abused anyone.

I understand that I am a public figure and therefore subject to public criticism. The nature of these statements and the manner in which they were released however go way beyond any sense of fairness and propriety. This case has gone on for seven years or more and simple facts like whether I own, or owned, a farm in the Scranton area were easily determinable. Contrary to the statements, I do not own, and never owned a farm in the Scranton area, upstate New York, or anywhere else for that matter.

The statement that a former seminarian of mine, Stanley Gana, abused a minor at a home which I owned on the shore and at which I permitted numerous friends and priests to use is misleading. What did not get released was additional information available to the Prosecutor that I was not aware of the incident and was not present at the house at the time. Gana has confirmed those facts in prior reports.

I was in Rome attending meetings at the Vatican when this false story about me was publicly released by the media without my knowledge or input. To say I was shocked and saddened would be an understatement.

I ask you to pray for me and the parishioners of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston as well as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. At the same time, please join me in prayer for all those who have been affected by sexual abuse."