Episcopal Press and News
PENNSYLVANNIA: Title IV Review Committee to consider complaint against Bennison
Episcopal News Service. March 29, 2007 [032907-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Church's Title IV Review Committee has been asked to deal with a complaint by the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania alleging that its bishop, Charles E. Bennison Jr., "has repeatedly usurped" its "canonical prerogatives and authority."
In a March 14 letter, David Booth Beers, chancellor to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, forwarded to the review committee the November 2006 "verified complaint" which the Standing Committee had sent to Jefferts Schori. Beers said he was acting at Jefferts Schori's request.
The letter, addressed to the Title IV Review Committee chair Upper South Carolina Bishop Dorsey Henderson, was written while Bennison and Jefferts Schori were in Boksburg, South Africa, attending the Towards Effective Anglican Mission conference. The letter followed a March 2 meeting of the Standing Committee; those who had filed the complaint against Bennison; Beers and his assistant, Mary E. Kostel; Michael F. Rehill, special counsel to the Standing Committee; and his assistant Pamela L. Lutz.
"It was a full and frank discussion of the complaint against Bishop Bennison and the canonical process and procedures," according to a statement on the Standing Committee's website.
The complaint formalized the Standing Committee's on-going dispute with Bennison over its claim that he has spent money and transferred funds without the Standing Committee's required consent.
The complaint, signed by the five clergy and five lay members of the Standing Committee, claimed Bennison had "misappropriated and expended assets of the Diocese, without canonical authority and without the required consent of the Standing Committee," and cites examples.
The complaint charged that Bennison violated the canons of General Convention, the diocese's canons and engaged in "conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy" in violation of the Episcopal Church's Canon IV.1.1(e), (f), and (j).
At the time that the complaint was filed, Bennison told ENS that it was "without merit." "I have never spent any money in the diocese without the approbation of various governance bodies," he said.
Bennison said at the time that the dispute between him and the Standing Committee turns on an interpretation of the diocesan canons as to which governing bodies must approve his use of which money. He says he has followed the interpretation of his former chancellor, an interpretation with which the Standing Committee disagrees.
In an email sent to ENS at Bennison's request November 9, William C. Bullitt, who was diocesan chancellor from 1990 to March 2006, said that the "diocesan canons direct that the Finance & Property Committee shall ‘be responsible, under the direction of the Diocesan Council, for all the financial affairs of the Diocese.'"
Bullitt also said that "there was no support in the canons for a process that allowed the Standing Committee to control the annual expenditure of 40% of the Diocese's general endowment income."
"Bishop Bennison's action in shifting control of these expenditures to Finance & Property (which until this year was appointed by the Diocesan Council) was consistent with my advice. If the Standing Committee did not like my advice, its members could have tried to amend the canons at an annual convention," he said. "They have not chosen to do so."
In April 2006, the Standing Committee reiterated its call for Bennison to leave office, saying it is troubled by a $350,000 drawdown from the diocese's unrestricted net assets.
The Standing Committee first asked Bennison to resign or retire by March 31, 2006. Bennison refused that request. Consultants from the Presiding Bishop's Office of Pastoral Development concluded earlier in March that they "cannot recommend any process of conciliation or any 'rigorous long-term process for addressing problems.'"
Delegates to a March 24, 2006 special convention approved the 2006 diocesan program budget, nearly three and half months after refusing to accept the budget that was presented at the diocese's regular convention. On November 5, 2005 the convention rejected a proposed $4.8 million 2006 program budget by a vote of 205-175. The use of unrestricted net assets in the budget was a major controversy.