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	Priest Asked to Leave over 1970s Abuse Pressure from Survivors Group Leads Bishop to Seek Clergyman's Resignation By John Simerman Contra Costa Times [California] June 3, 2006 http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/crime_courts/14733128.htm An Episcopal bishop who oversees scores of Bay Area churches has asked a popular Clayton priest to resign, citing pressure from a victim advocacy group that has spotlighted the Rev. John Bennison's sexual abuse of a teenage girl in the 1970s. It was unclear Friday whether Bennison has agreed to leave St. John's Episcopal Parish on Clayton Road, where he has served for 24 years. He refused to talk to a Times reporter Friday in the parish office, saying he was too busy. Bennison, 58, admitted to allegations of a four-year sexual relationship with a 14-year-old parishioner, according to a 1993 letter signed by Bishop Frederick Borsch, then the leader of the Diocese of Los Angeles. It began in 1972, while Bennison was an assistant in a Los Angeles-area church. Bennison was deposed from the priesthood in Los Angeles, but in 1980, he was restored under a church law that required a clean record for three years. He then was "immediately" transferred north, according to a May 31 letter that Bishop William Swing wrote to members of the Diocese of California, explaining his decision. Swing called Monday to ask Bennison to resign, he wrote in the letter, which the Times obtained Friday. The diocese oversees 81 Bay Area churches, including 26 in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, according to its Web site. The diocese was not told of the allegations when Bennison moved from Los Angeles, Swing wrote. Since 1993, when they came to light, the St. John's congregation has supported Bennison, who is married and has two daughters. In a letter to a Times reporter in April, Bennison called the allegation "an old story." Swing described Bennison as a changed man with "an unblemished record of conduct here," and wrote that he does not view the priest as a sexual threat to anyone in the diocese. "In a quarter century ... Father Bennison has done nothing that I can see to warrant being deposed," the bishop wrote. But a campaign by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, to force Bennison from the clergy, led him to the decision, Swing wrote. "Their well-funded tactics are working, and the exponential damage to the Episcopal Church nationwide and worldwide is taking a heavy toll. It's time to stop," he wrote. "At this point, I do not know how he will respond to my inquiry. But I want his tenure at St. John's to end now." Through an e-mail from an assistant, Swing declined to speak to the Times on Friday. SNAP representatives scoffed at Swing's comments, saying he should never have let Bennison serve for so long after knowing of the abuse. "We don't understand why (the bishop) shielded him so long," said Joey Piscitelli, a SNAP coordinator who protested outside St. John's twice in the last month. "You don't test a guy who's done this. You don't put him in a ministry with access to kids." In his letter, Swing wrote that he could not jettison Bennison from the clergy himself, but that any three clergy members in the diocese, or any seven laity, could bring a charge against a priest that would launch an inquiry. That has never happened. Swing wrote that since 1993, he has had to "wrestle with myself to ascertain whether or not Father Bennison was a threat," but that he lacked hard facts about several other allegations against him. David Clohessy, national director for SNAP, called the bishop's approach "hair-splitting motivated by damage control. "This is a painfully familiar, reckless and insensitive mimicking of the exact mismanagement shown by hundreds of Catholic officials," said Clohessy. "If the Catholic crisis has taught us anything, it's that changing job location doesn't cure pedophiles." Swing also urged a gathering of church people, SNAP members and victims to "get all of the facts and accusations and timelines and canonical issues out on the table. Listen to people who want to be heard."
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