NEW YORK (NY)
Slate
June 6, 2019
By Elliot Hannon
The Catholic Church always provides good fodder for Hollywood-like thrillers, that is the inner workings of the church often include the fundamental elements of a good cinematic tale, namely: sex, drugs, money, and, inevitably, a coverup. A new Washington Post investigation in to the church has everything Hollywood could hope for, implicating a former Catholic bishop in West Virginia who spent millions on a lavish lifestyle in one of the poorest states in the country and gave away as much as $350,000 in gifts to clergy before being ousted from the church in September amidst claims of sexual abuse and financial impropriety. Nine men in the Wheeling-Charleston diocese accused Bishop Michael Bransfield of groping, kissing or exposing himself to them or commenting on their bodies. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash gifts from Bransfield were given to young priests he is accused of mistreating, as well as to powerful cardinals in the U.S. and the Vatican itself.
The details of Bransfield’s misconduct were outlined in a confidential internal Vatican investigation following Bransfield’s resignation last fall. The instances of abuse, reported by the Post, are staggering:
There were “troubling hugs” from Bransfield, the seminarians and young priests told investigators. On some of these occasions, they alleged, Bransfield appeared to be intoxicated. Others said he warned them not to “get fat.” One said Bransfield slapped him on the buttocks at Castel Gandolfo in Italy, the summer residence of the pope… One seminarian recalled sitting on Bransfield’s lap, being kissed by the bishop and thinking: “I either do this, or I have to completely reinvent my life.” Bransfield asked him to take his pants off, but he refused, the seminarian told investigators. The seminarian later suffered an emotional breakdown and became deeply depressed, the report says.
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