Bishop Denies Sex Abuse Charge Aired in Court
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
The Roman Catholic bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., today denied allegations he sexually abused a child during the late 1970s or that he knowingly let other priests use his properties for that purpose when he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. "I have never sexually abused anyone," Bishop Michael J. Bransfield said in a statement released by his diocese. The statement by Bransfield, 68, a native of Roxborough who was ordained in 1970 by the late Cardinal John Krol, came one day after the testimony of a sex-abuse victim in the trial of two Philadelphia clerics in the church sex abuse trial involving the Philadelphia Archdiocese. On Wednesday, a 48-year-old man, identified only as "John" in the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury, alleged he was molested for years beginning in high school by the Rev. Stanley Gana, a priest in his Kensington parish. The man also described an encounter one summer when he lived on Gana's 110-acre farm in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The witness said was building a flagstone wall when a car driven by then-Rev. Bransfield pulled up with several teenage boys inside. "They're his fair-haired boys," the witness said Gana told him after the brief visit ended. "The one in the front seat he is having sex with." The witness said Gana and Bransfield were close friends and that he had been sexually abused by Gana during a visit to Bransfield's Shore house in Brigantine, N.J. The man was the second witness this week to name Bransfield in testimony. On Monday, another accuser told jurors that once, after abusing him, Gana put him on the phone with Bransfield, who was then in Washington, D.C. He said Bransfield told him: "I'm going to have Stanley put you on a train and come down and see me sometime." Bransfield has never been charged with sexually assaulting any children although his friendship with Gana is mentioned in the 2005 grand jury report of clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese. In his statement, Bransfield, who was named the bishop for the West Virginia diocese in December 2004, said he was "deeply saddened by the priest child-abuse scandal that has been connected to a handful of my former colleagues and friends from St. Charles Seminary. "Over the years, I have felt devastation for both the victims and the church as I learned about the terrible actions they took with innocent victims." Bransfield, however, disputed the trial testimony: "To now be unfairly included in that group and to hear the horrific allegations that are being made of me is unbelievable and shocking. "I consider Philadelphia my home," the bishop's statement continued. "I have openly been an advocate for the eradication of the abusive behavior of priests in every diocese, and have demonstrated this in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, where I now live and serve." Bransfield statement acknowledged that "I am a public figure and therefore subject to public criticism." But the bishop said "the nature of these statements and the manner in which they were released . . . go way beyond any sense of fairness and propriety." Bransfield said Philadelphia prosecutors have been told that he was not aware of or present at the Brigantine house when the alleged incident involving Gana occurred. Bransfield said he permitted "numerous friends and priests to use" the Shore house. Gana, 69, was removed from the ministry in 2002 and two years later began living under church supervision in "prayer and penance." He was defrocked in 2006. The District Attorney's office and the prosecutors in the ongoing church trial are under a gag order imposed by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina and have not commented on developments in the case. The testimony about the friendship between Gana and Bransfield came after city prosecutors told Sarmina that a West Virginia judge had balked at honoring a "material witness petition" from the District Attorney's office. According to Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington, the unnamed West Virginia judge is preventing his office from calling to the stand Msgr. Kevin Michael Quirk, one of three church judges who heard the 2008 canonical trial of the Rev. James J. Brennan on child sex-abuse charges. Brennan, 48, is a defendant in the Philadelphia criminal trial for the attempted rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1996, an assault he has denied. On trial with Brennan is Msgr. William J. Lynn, 61, who, as secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, was responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests. Lynn is the first church official to be criminally charged with enabling or covering up the allegations. The prosecution, now in its fourth week, maintains that the Philadelphia Catholic Church had a long-standing pattern of trying to avoid scandal at the expense of the priests' past and future victims. As part of the trial, Blessington has said he wants to present testimony from Quirk about Brennan's testimony at the 2008 canonical trial. Although the canonical trial was in Philadelphia, Quirk is now assigned to Bransfield's West Virginia diocese as judicial vicar and assistant to the bishop. Bransfield's statement did not address the judicial impasse involving Quirk and whether he will testify. Contact Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2985, jslobodzian@phillynews.com or @joeslobo on Twitter.
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