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The Rt Rev Charles Ellsworth Bennison, Jr.

Denomination	Episcopal Church
Senior posting
See	Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania
Title	Bishop of Pennsylvania
Period in office	1997 —
Predecessor	Allen Lyman Bartlett, Jr.
Successor	Incumbent
Religious career
Priestly ordination	1969
Previous bishoprics	none
Previous post	Rector, St Luke's, Atlanta, Georgia
Personal
Date of birth	30 November 1943
Place of birth	Minneapolis, Minnesota

Charles Ellsworth Bennison, Jr. is the 15th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.

Contents 1 Education and family 2 Ministerial and academic career 3 Bishop of Pennsylvania 3.1 2006 crisis 4 References 5 Publications 6 External links

[edit] Education and family

Bennison was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 30, 1943, and was baptized at St. Luke’s in Hastings, Minnesota, on December 24, 1943. His father, Charles Sr., was also a clergyman who went on to become Bishop of Western Michigan.

Bennison received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1965. In 1965-66, he studied at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, and then attended Harvard Divinity School, where he received a B.D., in 1968 and a Th.M. in 1970. He earned his M.A. from the Claremont Graduate School in 1977, and S.T.M. from Union Theological Seminary in 1992. He was honored with a D.Div. from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1997.

Married to the former Joan Kathryn Reahard, the bishop has two daughters, Sarah and Kathryn.

[edit] Ministerial and academic career

Ordained a deacon in 1968 and a priest in 1969, Bennison began his full-time ministry in 1971 as rector of St. Mark’s Church in Upland, California, where he was founder of St. Mark’s Episcopal School, St. Mark’s Homeless Shelter, and new congregations in Rancho Cucamonga and Chino, California.

In the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, he chaired the Program Group on Social Relations and the Standing Committee, served as president of the Corporation of the Diocese, taught at the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, and was a frequent reader of the General Ordination Examinations. He served as a member of Venture in Mission Board, the Los Angeles Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission, and numerous other bodies. In 1987, he was recognized by the Pomona Valley Council of Churches for outstanding leadership in ecumenical affairs. That year he was also among the nominees considered to replace Robert Rusack as bishop of the diocese, a position that ultimately went to Frederick Borsch.^[1]

Bennison has been a fellow of the College of Preachers and a Masland fellow at Union Theological Seminary. In 1992, he was elected to the faculty of Episcopal Divinity School, where he served as associate professor of Pastoral Theology and founded the program in Congregational Studies.

[edit] Bishop of Pennsylvania

Bennison was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania at a special convention held on October 19, 1996, at the Cathedral Church of the Savior in Philadelphia. He was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor on February 27, 1997, at the Deliverance Evangelistic church in Philadelphia and was made Bishop Diocesan on May 16, 1998.

As Bishop of Pennsylvania, Bennison became an important figure in the ongoing tension between liberal and conservative factions in The Episcopal Church. While still coadjutor, he had an article appear in Anglican Theological Review in he which he posited that the church and society were rethinking the nature of marriage, and suggesting that if this understanding came to include committed gay and lesbian relationships, "then the church ought to open to gay and lesbian couples the sacrament of marriage."^[2]

The Pennsylvania diocese included David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, who also led the American branch of the conservative group Forward in Faith. Moyer refused to allow Bennison to preach at his church, saying the bishop "was too liberal and could not be trusted in the pulpit."^[3] In response, Bennison approved a decision to suspend Moyer from his parish for six months in 2002.^[4] Bennison explained, "I deposed him because he had over a decade shown a pattern of a series of canonical failures, one after another. Under his leadership, his parish has become increasingly alienated from his diocese."^[3]

At the conclusion of the suspension, Bennison deposed Moyer on September 4, 2002. Moyer was promptly received by Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, as a priest in good standing. Moyer also denounced Bennison's teachings as "apostate and heretical".^[5]

[edit] 2006 crisis

During Bennison's episcopacy, the Diocese of Pennsylvania developed serious divisions over the management of church finances. Calls arose for Bennison to step down, which he resisted. Eventually the controversy expanded to dredge up allegations, from his time as rector in California, that he had failed to respond appropriately to charges that his brother, John Bennison, had sexually abused parishioners.

The financial crisis came to a head in 2006, when the Standing Committee of the diocese voted twice to request Bennison's resignation. This followed the committee's repeated refusal to accept the reappointment of diocesan chancellor William Bullitt, who advised Bennison on financial matters, and the defeat of the 2006 budget in a diocesan convention. A major point of controversy was the planned use of $1.2 million in unrestricted net assets. Meanwhile, the Diocesan Council passed a resolution in support of Bennison, and Bishop Clayton Matthews of the church Office of Pastoral Development was called in to mediate.^[6][7][8]

On November 6, 2006, the Standing Committee filed a complaint against Bennison with church authorities, charging that he had usurped its "canonical prerogatives and authority" by spending money and transferring funds without the committee's consent. Bennison responded that the complaint had no merit, saying, "I have never spent any money in the diocese without the approbation of various governance bodies."^[9] The chancellor to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori forwarded the complaint to a review committee in March 2007.^[10]

While these problems were building, Bennison's brother John, a pastor in Clayton, California, was suspended from his post because of sexual misconduct. The charges dated back to John's service at St. Mark's Church, while in training for the priesthood and working under Charles as parish youth director. Although married, John was shown to have had sexual relationships with several women and girls he had counseled, including one who was 14 when the relationship began that continued for four years.^[11] In 1975, John left St. Mark's for a parish in Santa Barbara, where he would also have other affairs.^[12]

The matter became an issue in Pennsylvania after Bishop Bennison's critics argued that he had concealed the abuse of the 14-year-old, and held three forums attended by the girl's mother along with John Bennison's ex-wife. Charles Bennison initially said he had learned of the situation from the girl's parents and promptly told his brother to leave the parish. He acknowledged not having reported the matter to civil or ecclesiastical authorities at the time, saying, "I did not think it was my prerogative to do so on my own" (because the girl's parents had not done so).^[13]

The girl's mother vehemently disputed this account, based on a 1978 letter from Bennison indicating that he had not told them of the relationship when he discovered it. John's ex-wife produced another letter from 1979 in which Charles Bennison asked her not to visit the parish because of the potential for "a public scandal here which, I believe, could cost me my job."^[12]

The forums came shortly before the November diocesan convention. Addressing the convention, Bennison said:

Reading the statements from last weekend's sessions reminded me that it was probably the senior warden, not the girl's mother, who in 1975 reported John's abuse, after which I immediately told him to leave the parish, and that in order to maintain the confidentiality of both John and the girl, I did not tell the parents, who nonetheless confronted me when they had found out four years later. Until reading the statements I had never before known that John's destructive behavior did not stop, but rather increased, in the parish to which he went after leaving my parish. That I could have prevented that from happening had I known to act differently is extremely grievous to me. My efforts to maintain confidentiality and prevent scandal were very misguided....

He also reassured people that the church had since established reporting and disciplinary procedures so that, "What happened 30 years ago would not happen today."^[14]

Outside the convention, protesters renewed calls for Bennison's resignation, but inside a motion to hold him accountable narrowly failed. Instead, a study of the impact of sexual abuse by clergy was authorized almost unanimously. Unlike the previous year, the convention was able to adopt a $3.45 million program budget.^[15][16]

[edit] References

[edit] Publications

• Bennison, Charles E. In Praise of Congregations: Leadership in the Local Church Today. 1998.

[edit] External links

• Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania
• The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

[[Category:Living people|Bennison, Charles]] [[Category:Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America|Bennison, Charles]]