US BISHOP RETURNS TO DIVIDED DIOCESE

The Standing Committee of a diocese in Pennsylvania says they have lost trust in their bishop who covered up the sexual offences of his brother.

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison returned to the diocesan offices in downtown Philadelphia Aug. 16 amid continued calls for his retirement or resignation.

"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," the diocesan Standing Committee said in a letter posted to the diocese's website in the late morning. "We believe that it would be in the best interest of the diocese that Bishop Bennison not resume his exercise of authority here."

Bennison is due to meet with Assisting Bishop Rodney Michel on the morning of Aug. 17. Standing Committee President Glenn Matis, Standing Committee Secretary Arlene McGurk and committee member the Rev. Ledlie Laughlin plan to meet with Bennison in the afternoon, Matis told ENS.

The bishop did not answer an Aug. 16 Episcopal News Service request for an interview.

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.

Bennison's return to office 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 Standing Committee said in its Aug. 16 letter to the diocese that "we grieve the pain endured by the victim of abuse, and by her family; our prayers are with her and with all who suffer."

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori inhibited Bennison in October 2007 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.

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, August 16, 2010 for Episcopal News Service.