The ecclesiastical appeals court agreed with a 2008 church ruling that Bennison was guilty of "conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy," but in reversing a ruling that he be defrocked, the court pointed out that because Bennison was not the abuser the statute of limitations on his misconduct had run out.
In explaining its ruling, the court pieced together a damning picture of an ineffectual church hierarchy that often seemed to prefer silence and collusion to the truth. But the court also pointed out - in my opinion with justice - that to be silent or even possibly willfully ignorant of abuse, as his opponents argue Bennison was, still doesn't make him a perpetrator.
Nonetheless, the charges were serious. Charles Bennison was accused of failing to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual abuse of a minor leveled against his brother John. In the 1970s, John was a youth minister training for the priesthood on the staff of Charles Bennison's Upland, Calif., parish.
The list of those who knew about the allegations reads like a bill of indictment against the church. There is no apparent evidence that secular authorities were ever notified, and the appeals court's 39-page ruling lays out in precise legal prose what has long been suspected about the lack of reporting on sexual abuse by many church officials:
Los Angeles Bishop Robert Rusack (now dead) learned of the accusations from John Bennison's ex-wife when Rusack restored John to the priesthood in 1979.
In 1993, the victim's mother detailed the allegations in a letter to Frederick Borsch, then the bishop of Los Angeles. She copied a number of other bishops and clergy, including priest Margo Maris, an advocate for abuse victims. To his credit, Borsch set up meetings between church authorities and the victim's family.
