How about a bishop who said Jesus was a sinner who forgave himself. Or likened the growth of the Anglican Church in Africa to the growth of the Nazi Party. Or a bishop who writes a Visigoth Rite for queers, for heaven's sake. What Bennison believes about the faith wouldn't fill his own miter.

Bennison will undoubtedly use his wife's millions to continue the litigation. It's as though he and Bishop David L. Moyer of Good Shepherd are looking for someone to sue so they can say "we were right, y'all had us wrong." The Standing Committee and Moyer both deserve each other. They voted for Bennison who in due course betrayed the orthodox remnant over flying bishops. The Standing Committee that once saw Bennison as their spiritual Caesar is now wishing he would fall on his sword.

At the end, it wasn't about money or theology, it was about sex, the only barometer TEC has to judge anything these days...and the more varieties of sex the better. Can anyone add additional letters to LGBTQ?

Even sex with a minor is still a no-no in TEC; until of course, liberals and revisionists manage to get the age of consent lowered to 14. Bennison, of course, knew what his brother was doing sexually with an underage teenage girl and conveniently said nothing in order to further his own career among other things. His lame excuse? He didn't want to hurt the girl or the parents.

One constant is the common hatred both Bennison and the Standing Committee have had and continue to have for the orthodox Episcopal remnant in the diocese. The remnant orthodox is getting the last laugh. The Standing Committee and Bennison may yet face off in court; the enemy of my friend is my enemy. Ha. Hundreds of thousands more dollars will be spent on lawyers. Lawyers like casinos prove that the house always wins.

What a contrast with the Global South meeting in Singapore recently. There, there was life and hope and joy with 130 Anglican leaders proclaiming a gospel of love and redemption ready to do battle with the spiritual forces of darkness the cross held high.

In the basement of a church in Wilmington, DE sat a 100 or so aging spiritually lifeless clergy and laity looking for all the world like tombstones in search of bodies while lawyers wailed over a vindictive, nasty spiritually, pasty faced, bankrupt little bishop, who should never have been a bishop in the first place, or a priest for that matter, trying to salvage or bury his worthless episcopacy under a pile of legal documents. All the while this is costing the diocese and national church hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees on both sides of the aisle, and Bennison's full salary and benefits for doing absolutely nothing except to fight his own cause.

David Booth Beers, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori personal attorney sat there looking poker-faced like a tombstone of his own. Ironically Katharine wants Bennison gone as well. It'll be interesting to see if she is as successful getting rid of Bennison as she was getting rid of Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan. (The Episcopal Church did manage to get rid of Bishop Cy Jones of Montana; Bennison is proving a tougher turkey apparently.)

All the victims were at his latest hearing and listening, as, one more time, their lives were raked over by attorneys on both sides. There were tears and handkerchiefs; they have had to relive the horror time and time again.

Dear God, will it ever end, will the nightmare ever be over and Bennison finally sent into ecclesiastical exile, into his own personal gulag, where the damned are punished for all eternity by just living and remembering everything they did to screw the faith and those who desperately wanted to believe it?

END

CORRECTION: I have been told by a retired canon law bishop that there is no further appeal to the HOB that Bennison can make. Whatever decision this appeal board comes up with will be it for Bennison.