The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison Jr.’s lawyer repeatedly pressed a theme of maintaining the confidentiality of the young woman who was sexually abused by the bishop’s younger brother, during the final day of his ecclesiastical trial in Philadelphia on Thursday.

The Bishop of Pennsylvania is charged with responding inadequately to the sexual abuse of Martha Alexis in the 1970s, and with suppressing information about his brother’s behavior in the years since then.

“One of the few things I learned in my ascetic theology class with Charles Harris at Seabury-Western [Theological Seminary] was that you keep all things confidential,” the bishop said.

During his closing argument, church attorney Charles Jacobs criticized such reasoning as a “false sense of solicitude for Martha Alexis’ confidentiality that is spread like a blanket” over every instance in which Bishop Bennison stands accused of failing to do something more.

Attendance at the Court for the Trial of a Bishop, which met at the downtown Marriott Hotel, surged for the final day, attracting about 80 people at its peak.

Mr. Jacobs listed multiple occasions on which Bishop Bennison, as the rector of St. Mark’s Church in Upland, California, should have protected Ms. Alexis from his brother. Those opportunities included two encounters in the summer of 1973, when Ms. Alexis said she and Mr. Bennison hurriedly dressed as they heard the rector approaching from a distance.

Both times, she testified, Bishop Bennison said nothing to the couple when he interrupted their sexual encounters. Mr. Jacobs said Bishop Bennison later confronted his brother after the second such encounter, but too readily believed his denial that any sexual activity was occurring.

“He didn’t stop it, he didn’t get help, he didn’t protect others, he didn’t protect his flock,” Mr. Jacobs said.

“This trial is not about John Bennison’s conduct. John Bennison’s conduct is reprehensible, criminal, and sinful,” countered defense attorney James Pabarue. “This trial is about Charles Bennison’s conduct. Throughout this trial, the church’s attorney has attempted to conflate John Bennison’s conduct with Charles Bennison’s conduct.”

Mr. Pabarue stressed that other bishops knew some level of detail about the John Bennison scandal. The Rt. Rev. David Richards, then the head of the Office of Pastoral Development, helped Mr. Bennison be reinstated to the priesthood a few years after he had stepped down.

The Rt. Rev. Harold Hopkins, who followed Bishop Richards as director of the Office of Pastoral Development, was aware of the case and discussed it with the Most Rev. Edmond Browning during his term as Presiding Bishop, Mr. Pabarue said, but neither man attempted to stop Bishop Bennison’s consecration as Bishop of Pennsylvania.

In his most dramatic gesture of the day, Mr. Pabarue filed a motion asking that the court dismiss Bishop Bennison’s case as a matter of law, based on the statute of limitations. Mr. Pabarue had filed a similar motion before the trial, and the court rejected it.

“Now that all of the evidence has been presented at trial, it is clear that the Church has failed to establish any question of material fact that the presentment issued against Bishop Bennison for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy was ‘within, or continued up to, ten years immediately preceding the time of receipt of a charge,’” the motion said, citing the requirement of The Episcopal Church’s Canon IV.14.4(a)(1).

The nine-judge Court for the Trial of a Bishop has 30 days to render a judgment. If found guilty, Bishop Bennison could be removed as Bishop of Pennsylvania and deposed from the ordained ministry.

Douglas LeBlanc

We invite your response to this article through a Letter to the Editor. Email your letter to tlc@livingchurch.org. Please include your name, city and state.
 
To find more news, feature articles, and commentary about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion not available online, read The Living Church magazine each week. Click here to start your subscription.