Asshole of the Week

Some topics just automatically lend themselves to generating Assholes of the Week, and this week, it's the topic of clergy abuse scandals that provides our dishonoree. Charles E. Bennison, the suspended Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia Pennsylvania, testified in his church tiral. Bennison is accused of helping to cover up abuse his brother, John, committed 35 years ago against a 14-year-old girl.

Now, we're some of the first people to jump in line to make clergy molestation jokes. But to some extent, we can understand covering for your brother, no matter how awful the acts committed were. It's human instinct to not throw a family member under the bus. (We're not in any way saying that we condone the cover-up—only that we can understand how Bennison would be reluctant to report his brother's crimes.) But it's not what Bennison actually did by participating in the cover-up, deplorable though that is in and of itself. No, rather, what's landed Charles Bennison on these pages is the asinine things he said in his testimony. We realize that 35 years is a long time, and that memories fade, but one would think you'd remember some of the details of your brother molesting a teenage girl. Apparently, we're wrong:

I can't remember what I've forgotten.... I do think I have an amnesia problem. I don't remember a lot of this.

Oh, and as if not remembering what he's forgotten wasn't ridiculous enough, Bennison "testified that he had not viewed the sexual affair between then-14-year-old Martha Alexis and his brother as abuse, but more as consensual sin on both of their parts." So he doesn't remember anything about the incident, except that it was consensual. Uh-huh. Right. Yeesh.

So, for covering up his brother's abuse, and then for making some completely ridiculous statements in his own defense, Bishop Charles E. Bennison is this week's Asshole of the Week.

Image via Flickr user shadysidelantern.