{"id":9162,"date":"2019-06-05T21:05:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T01:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=9162"},"modified":"2019-06-06T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T16:49:08","slug":"the-diocese-of-wheeling-charleston-owns-up-to-a-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2019\/06\/the-diocese-of-wheeling-charleston-owns-up-to-a-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Owns Up to a Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have often been to Mass in the Roman Catholic diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers the entire state of West Virginia. The diocese\u2019s borders are identical with the state borders\u2013 the bishop of Wheeling-Charleston is the bishop of the Mountain State. I\u2019ve grown to love some of the parishes there.<\/p>\n

West Virginia has been ranked the\u00a0ninth poorest state<\/a> in our country, based on household income. More than one in four<\/a> of the children in West Virginia live in poverty.\u00a0And, since it\u2019s a largely rural state in\u00a0 the Appalachian mountains, that ranking doesn\u2019t even tell you the whole story. Twenty thousand dollars a year plus food stamps goes a certain way if you\u2019re living in an apartment on a bus route in a city; it\u2019s something else entirely if you\u2019re living in a trailer on the side of a mountain an hours\u2019 drive from the nearest Wal Mart, with no water except what comes from the pump outside and no wifi for twenty miles. The expenses are different, and the amount of help the government can provide doesn\u2019t go as far. These hardworking people have been left behind by every economic boom our country has experienced. Their lives are always difficult.<\/p>\n

West Virginia is not a largely Catholic area, but the Catholics I have met there are truly wonderful. They drive for an hour or more to get to Mass, they act as if they\u2019re truly grateful to be there, and afterwards there\u2019s often a party. About twenty years ago I went to Mass in a tiny church in Pocahontas County which had perhaps as many as twelve fervent worshipers and one beautifully reverent priest, in a room the size of a small store front; the person serving as lector and usher provided music for the hymns by turning on a cassette player.\u00a0During the announcements after the liturgy, the priest smiled and said that the bishop wanted to meet him \u201cand his staff\u201d for a luncheon in Charleston.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conversation started with \u2018I don\u2019t have any staff,\u2019 and it didn\u2019t end with \u2018my congregation can\u2019t afford to take a day off to go to Charleston with me,'\u201d the priest joked. \u201cBut if anyone can take a day off to come with me, the bishop knows how to eat right, you\u2019ll get a good lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The well-fed bishop of Wheeling-Charleston is responsible for the spiritual well-being of those financially poor, culturally and spiritually wealthy people in those tiny parishes in the mountains.<\/p>\n

For the past thirteen years, the bishop of the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston was Michael J. Bransfield, who recently resigned. And now we get to know why he resigned.<\/p>\n

Today, a letter<\/a> was released to the faithful in the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston by the apostolic administrator who is currently in charge, the Most Reverend William E. Lori, describing what Bransfield was up to all these years.<\/p>\n

According to the letter, Bransfield sexually harassed underlings and created such a \u201cculture of fear of retaliation and retribution\u201d that no one dared stop him from covering up massive misappropriation of diocesan money for his lifestyle. The diocesan letter mentions renovations to his two residences, the construction of a retirement residence, and lavish spending on\u00a0 \u201cpersonal travel, dining, liquor, gifts and luxury items,\u201d but doesn\u2019t go into detail.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the Washington Post<\/a> came out with an investigative story less than 20 minutes after the letter was published, and it fills in some of the blanks. A thousand dollars<\/a> were spent per month on alcohol alone. $4.6 million were spent on renovating an entire private residence after a single bathroom sustained some fire damage. Bransfield had his house decked out in fresh floral arrangements which were delivered daily, to the tune of $100 per day. He also allegedly harassed, kissed, touched or exposed himself to at least nine adult men; the people around him feared to leave him alone with an altar server. Bransfield has denied these allegations, which rings awfully hollow considering that the diocese found them to be \u201csubstantiated;\u201d they\u2019re going to sell the bishop\u2019s residence and pay the victims\u2019 therapy bills. I guess that\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n

Lori himself disclosed receiving seven and a half thousand dollars in \u201cgifts\u201d from Bransfield over the years, which he apparently just now returned to the diocese suggesting it be given to Catholic Charities. I am, myself, striving to be charitable about a cleric who receives thousands of dollars as a present from another cleric and doesn\u2019t immediately assume something is deeply wrong. I am also striving to be charitable about Lori who, as a recipient of all that money, surely had a gross conflict of interest, being put in charge of investigating Bransfield in the first place. Perhaps I can be forgiven for wondering whether we\u2019d have gotten a letter from the diocese at all, if they hadn\u2019t been anticipating the Post coming out with the story first.\u00a0 His appointment represents at minimum a crass mistake.<\/p>\n

West Virginia is the ninth poorest state in the country.<\/p>\n

Children there can take two hours to bus to school, where the textbooks sometimes haven\u2019t been replaced in decades.<\/p>\n

There are regions where it\u2019s not even a given that there will be potable running water indoors, not because they can\u2019t afford to pay the bills but because the infrastructure isn\u2019t there or is too old to work properly.<\/p>\n

Mental illness, despair and drug use are rampant.<\/p>\n

The Latin Catholic parishes sometimes can\u2019t even afford to hire staff.<\/p>\n

Their parishioners can\u2019t afford a day off.<\/p>\n

And this self-indulgent, prurient lounge lizard with a hundred-dollar-a-day cut flower habit was put in charge of every Latin Catholic church in the state for thirteen years.<\/p>\n

When the Holy See finally got around to asking questions, they apparently left the investigation in the hands of a bishop who had quietly received thousands of dollars in \u201cgifts\u201d from the man he was supposed to investigate. And he\u2019s going to atone by selling one house and paying the therapy bills.<\/p>\n

I am nine hundred ninety words into this blog post, and I\u2019m speechless. I don\u2019t think a word exists in English or ecclesiastical Latin to express how horrendous an abuse of power was committed in the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. No curse words I know even begin to do justice to the obscenity of living that lavishly, while committing sexual harassment and worse things, and claiming Jesus Christ as your excuse, all the while surrounded by some of the poorest and most desperate people in the country.<\/p>\n

The folks in West Virginia might begin by saying \u201cbless their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for those who don\u2019 t know, that\u2019s not a compliment.<\/p>\n

(image: Basilica of the co-cathedral of the Sacred Heart,\u00a0 provided by the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, via Wikimedia Commons)\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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I have often been to Mass in the Roman Catholic diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers the entire state of West Virginia. The diocese\u2019s borders are identical with the state borders\u2013 the bishop of Wheeling-Charleston is the bishop of the Mountain State. I\u2019ve grown to love some of the parishes there. West Virginia has been ranked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":9165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865,1738,22,897,5192,111,1652,2146,733,1767,284,2039,1746,480,896,59,54,71],"tags":[24,4323,8853,8862,8859,179,4271,465,8856],"class_list":["post-9162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuse","category-america","category-appalachia","category-cry-of-the-poor","category-culture","category-education","category-horror","category-human-dignity","category-mess","category-monster","category-news","category-public-face-of-catholicism","category-scandal","category-sexual-ethics","category-social-justice","category-spiritual-abuse","category-story","category-suffering","tag-appalachia","tag-cover-up","tag-diocese-of-wheeling-charleston","tag-lavish","tag-michael-j-bransfield","tag-poverty","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-west-virginia","tag-william-lori"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Owns Up to a Horror<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have often been to Mass in the Roman Catholic diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, which covers the entire state of West Virginia. 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