PENNSYLVANIA: VOL Obtains Exclusive Interview with Returning Bishop Charles E. Bennison
A Satirical Essay
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
October 6, 2010
VOL: How do you feel, Bishop, now that you are back in the saddle, so to speak?
Bennison: Absolutely fabulous, or as they say in Hollywood, TOTALLY abfab.
VOL: What are your priorities now that you are back?
Bennison: That's easy. Restore everything that was temporarily taken from me. I am planning to rescind the sale of Camp Wapiti. I plan to expand it, obtain a liquor license for the place and booze it up with my pals in Maryland away from prying eyes in Pennsylvania.
VOL: You have some pals?
Bennison: My legal counsel James Pabarue is now my best friend....and, of course, my wife who has stood by me this whole time tolerating my rages against those petty little people who perjured themselves about what they claim I knew and saw with regards to my brother John. He has gone through hell with all this, the poor man.
VOL: Do you think you can persuade ANYONE on the Standing Committee to join you in your victory party?
Bennison: I am working on them. I have told the clergy on the Standing Committee that if they don't come to my party and say how wonderful I am, what a brilliant leader I am in the spirit of Kim Jong-il, I will inhibit and depose them. They'll come.
VOL: You informed the Standing Committee and others that you have clearly seen that there have been changes in the diocese during your absence, and you felt it would be important for you to listen for some time before determining your own actions going forward. But your actions and communications these last six weeks belie this.
Bennison: Well, I listened, David...for about ten minutes. Then I lost my hearing aid in the Schuylkill River while paddling my canoe to a brighter future and I haven't been able to hear a thing since.
VOL: What other plans do you have?
Bennison: Well, as you know, it is my intention to use $70,000 from the income of the Nunn's Fund to publish a book on the history of the diocese - a project left unfinished when I was inhibited. I want to make sure that the history of the diocese for the past ten years paints me in the best possible light. I'm a fantastic bishop you know. History will show that. I will be absolved. I will be shown to be the greatest bishop since Arius.
VOL: What about the situation with Fr. David Moyer and Good Shepherd, Rosemont?
Bennison: Well, as you know, the Moyer/Good Shepherd situation is back in my lap and I plan to pursue this. Moyer is not an Episcopal priest and the parish property belongs to the diocese and national church. The Dennis Canon will secure it for us.
VOL: Anything else?
Bennison: Then I plan to go after Fr. Eddy Rix at All Saints, Wynnewood. He is no longer an Episcopal priest having hooked up with an African bishop. God, how I hate those homophobic African bishops; you'll recall I said their growth was like the growth of the Nazi Party....
VOL (Interrupting) But, Bishop, you sent him back to Africa where he went on trial where he was found not guilty and sent back to preach the gospel....
Bennison: (Interrupting) you must know by now, David, that I never keep my promises. Look what I did to the "Seven Sisters" Anglo Catholic priests. I promised them alternative Episcopal oversight and then I reneged on that promise. You see, promises are made to be broken not kept.
VOL: Don't you feel any shame with at least some of your actions, Charles?
Bennison: Well, I must confess I felt some real shame towards my fellow bishops who wrote me a stinging letter at the last HOB telling me to get lost. What they wrote was most shameful. I was made to feel like such a victim. Oh, god, I can still feel the pain. Not a single bishop came up to me at the HOB and congratulated me on my return...not even Vickie Gene or Mary Glasspool, both of whom I supported to be a bishop. It was very shameful of them, indeed.
VOL: And what about Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori?
Bennison: Well, I must tell you in confidence that she can be a real bitch. I mean a real "Beatch." That woman has no scruples at all. She has wanted me out from the moment she got the job as PB. And that slime ball attorney of hers, David Booth Beers.....now I would like to see his license revoked for how he has tried to get rid of me. Also, that pig Bishop Clayton Matthews, Jefferts Schori's attack dog...that man should be made to spend time in Haiti making concrete blocks to build houses with his bare hands.
VOL: But if I recall, former PB Frank Griswold was not that excited about you staying and asked you to meet him with Sufi the Rumi on a plain beyond good and evil to resolve the crisis in the diocese.
Bennison: Well, Frank was off somewhere and the Sufi was a no show, so I ate crab cakes with a bottle of chateau-neuf-de-pap, alone on the plain.
VOL: Can you give us a hint of your future plans, Bishop?
Bennison: Well, as you know, the world is changing and we, the Episcopal Church and Christianity must change with it. I am a great believer in Jack Spong's 12 Theses... they will be the chief cornerstone of our new creed. I am looking forward to using my very own Visigoth Rite in the cathedral to marry two transgendered people whom God loves so desperately. She wants them all to be so happy, you know.
I plan to continue to eviscerate orthodoxy completely from the diocese and any parish that tries to hire an orthodox priest will not get a permanent license from me. Three months at most, then he's out the door. Of course, I will go on closing parishes that don't fit the new religion and that die for lack of interest in The Episcopal Church. The money we get from the sales will allow me to carry out my pogrom, er, program in the diocese.
VOL: Thank you, Bishop.
Bennison: Any time you want lunch at the Union League, David, let me know. It'll be on the diocesan tab, of course. I think we still have a few pots of money, endowments, trusts and the like, that I can tap into...for one thing or another.
END