PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

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…