Bennison trial concludes

Wednesday, 25th June 2008
By George Conger

The trial of the Bishop of Pennsylvania for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy concluded this week, with a plea from the defendant’s lawyer not to judge the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison Jr., for the crimes of his brother, the Rev. John Bennison.

Bishop Bennison was accused of failing to discipline his brother John, who as a seminarian served as his youth minister in the 1970’s at St Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upland, California. John Bennison, who resigned from the priesthood in 2006, was accused of having seduced a teenage member of his parish youth group---and that his brother, Charles, had knowledge of the affair, but took no action. the rest