A former Roman Catholic bishop in West Virginia has issued an apology two years after resigning amid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, and the diocese said Thursday that he has repaid $441,000.
The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston on Thursday released a letter from former Bishop Michael Bransfield on its website.
“I am writing to apologize for any scandal or wonderment caused by words or actions attributed to me during my tenure,” Bransfield wrote in the letter, dated Aug. 15.
Bransfield said he was reimbursed during his time as bishop for “certain expenditures that have been called into question as excessive.” He said he has paid the money back to the diocese “even though I believed that such reimbursements to me were proper.”
The $441,000 repayment is far less than the $792,638 sought by the church that was presented to Bransfield last November. Current Bishop Mark Brennan said the final repayment was approved by the Congregation for Bishops in Rome and that the money will be placed in a fund to pay for counseling victims of sexual abuse, added to money already set aside by the sale of Bransfield’s former residence.
A church investigation last year found Bransfield misused diocese funds for lavish spending on dining out, liquor, vacations, luxury items and church-funded personal gifts to fellow bishops and cardinals in the U.S. and the Vatican.
The investigation also found sexual misconduct allegations against Bransfield to be credible.
Brennan, who was named West Virginia’s bishop in July 2019, has said the diocese incurred significant expenses arising from the investigation of Bransfield and “various legal issues” involving the diocese. An audit released in February listed spending on investigations and lawsuits at $1.5 million.
The diocese announced in August 2019 it had confidentially settled a lawsuit filed by a former personal altar server accusing Bransfield of molesting boys and men. The filing asserted Bransfield would consume at least half a bottle of liqueur nightly and had drunkenly assaulted or harassed seminarians.
And a lawsuit filed by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey accused the diocese and Bransfield of knowingly employing pedophiles and failing to conduct adequate background checks on camp and school workers. A circuit judge dismissed the suit until the state Supreme Court decides whether it violates rules about the separation of church and state.
In his letter, Bransfield said that “there have been allegations that by certain words and actions I have caused certain priests and seminarians to feel sexually harassed. Although that was never my intent, if anything that I said or did caused others to feel that way, then I am profoundly sorry.”
Bransfield concluded that he hoped the letter “will help to achieve a kind of reconciliation” with diocese followers. The apology was part of the plan presented to Bransfield at the request of Pope Francis last year.
In a separate statement detailing the approved plan, Brennan said the diocese is aware that some individuals also have received a letter from Bransfield. The statement did not indicate what that letter said.
The leader of a national group that supports victims of clergy sexual abuse said Thursday that Bransfield’s letter was “written more as a defense than a true apology.”
“A true apology from Bransfield would not contain any equivocation or whines about his intent being mis-perceived, but a simple and straightforward acceptance of his wrongdoing,” said Zach Hiner, executive director of the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
Hiner said the sex allegations against Bransfield “are not things that can simply be waved away with an apology.”
Brennan said Bransfield will received $2,250 in a monthly retirement stipend, far less than the $6,200 typically given to a retired bishop.
“This is in accord with the discretion that I have … to reduce or eliminate additional benefits for a predecessor who did not retire in good standing,” Brennan said.
Brennan said Bransfield also has complied with a request to buy the diocesan vehicle he has been using in retirement.
A newspaper has published a secret church report about a former West Virginia bishop ousted for alleged sexual and financial misconduct that details how he allegedly groomed and inappropriately touched young men.
The Washington Post reports law enforcement does not have a copy of the report, which officials said could aid in their investigation into former bishop Michael Bransfield.
The Post said it received a copy of the 60-page report in June and has previously reported its contents. Bransfield is also accused of spending church funds on dining out, liquor, personal travel and luxury items, as well as personal gifts to fellow bishops and cardinals in the U.S. and Vatican.
Bransfield resigned in September 2018 amid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. Earlier this year, Pope Francis barred Bransfield from public ministry and prohibited him from living in the diocese.
West Virginia’s attorney general and police in Washington, D.C., have issued subpoenas to church officials in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Baltimore, seeking the report. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the church has denied his request for it. He said he was told the report “is with the Pope and out of its hands.”
The report published by The Post said “no conclusive evidence was found that Bishop Bransfield committed sexual misconduct with minors.” But it said Bransfield “subjected multiple seminarians and priests to unwanted sexual overtures, sexual harassment and sexual contact.”
The newspaper does not specify how it obtained the report. A copy was published on its website this week.
Church officials in West Virginia have also said they don’t have a copy of the report.
“The Holy See commissioned the preliminary investigation, thus the report belongs to the Holy See,” Tim Bishop, a spokesman for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, said in a statement to The Post.
Bransfield has denied wrongdoing. He had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims.
When Vincent Pallotti was ordained a priest in 1818, he wrote, “I ask God to make me an untiring worker.” He set about to offer “food for the hungry…medicine and health for the sick.”
Pallotti, who lived simply, in Rome, his entire life, worked in fellowship. He established schools and shelters for women, orphanages, night schools for laborers. “Remember that the Christian life is one of action; not of speech and daydreams,” he wrote. “Let there be few words and many deeds, and let them be done well.”
In that spirit, the Pallottine Missionary Sisters were founded, in Germany, in 1888. The order flourished, its members venturing into the world to serve. The Pallottine sisters arrived in West Virginia in 1912. In 1924, they opened a 35-bed hospital in Huntington. That hospital is now St. Mary’s Medical Center, the largest medical facility in Huntington and Cabell County’s largest private employer. It was announced in May that St. Mary’s had been sold to Cabell Huntington Hospital, another of West Virginia’s largest hospitals.
Credit Courtesy of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters
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An exterior of the original St. Mary’s Hospital, taken in 1924. The building previously housed the St. Edwards Preparatory School for Boys.
The number of Pallottine sisters in the U.S. today has dwindled to 20, 12 of whom are in West Virginia, 10 in Huntington. In announcing the sale of St. Mary’s, Sister Mary Grace Barile, the provincial of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters, said, “Due to the declining number of sisters in our community, we are no longer able to continue our health care ministry.”
But the Pallottine sisters aren’t relinquishing the commitment to their community. Their mission will now be advanced through the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, a conversion foundation.
Conversion foundations are created when nonprofit health care organizations are sold to for-profit entities. They’re not a new phenomenon in Appalachia.
This conversion foundation, the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, will provide yearly cycles of grant funding to nonprofit organizations in 20 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio in support of health-related initiatives, not necessarily hospitals or health systems. The first recipients will be announced in the coming weeks, expected in the areas of food insecurity, mental health, substance-use disorder and tobacco-use prevention and cessation.
Credit Courtesy of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters
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Fundamental to St. Vincent Pallotti’s ministry was his commitment to harnessing the gifts of those with whom he communed. He strove to empower the laity to fully realize the church’s mission – clergy and lay people of “every class, rank and condition” ministering in concert – an initiative that was about a century and a half ahead of its time.
In a sense, as the Pallottine Missionary Sisters pass ownership of St. Mary’s to Cabell Huntington and double down on their commitment to the broader community, they’ve come full circle.
“We’ve lost many, many members, but the mission is still there,” Sr. Joanne Obrochta avows. “We know why we’re here; we have a purpose, and it’s being fulfilled. Maybe differently, but even more meaningfully.”
‘Just The Place’
Sr. Joanne is a woman of quiet, impactful words. Born in the once-bustling coalmining town of Gary, West Virginia, her first calling was to nursing.
Credit Eric Douglas / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Sr. Joanne Obrochta.
“My mother had a stroke and died when I was a junior in high school,” Sr. Joanne says, “and I think that was the beginning of my vocation.”
She wanted to attend a Catholic school, and sought counsel from her parish priest. “He said, ‘I know just the place you would probably like very much. It’s in Huntington.’ He was referring to St. Mary’s School of Nursing, within what is now St. Mary’s Medical Center.
“He said he was going there that next weekend, he had some business there, and invited me to come down and have an interview with the sisters.
“And once I got here, I thought, ‘This is for me.’ I knew right away.”
Sr. Joanne left briefly to earn degrees at Duquesne and Creighton Universities; she’s otherwise spent her life serving at St. Mary’s. “In December, I’ll be 90.”
Though she loved nursing dearly, Sr. Joanne knew “there was something over and above that I needed to do in life, and that was to become a religious sister.” Entering the Pallottine order, “I found my home. This is my home.”
The history of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters is an epic tale.
In 1912, four women left Bremerhaven, Germany, bound for they knew not where. They simply knew they were called. They booked passage on the Titanic, but were delayed due to an issue with one of the sisters’ travel documents. They later sailed past the wreckage of the ship, carnage, reportedly, strewn for miles.
Arriving in the States, they were scheduled to travel by train to upstate New York, to study English with the Sisters of St. Francis. But, once again, they were delayed at the last moment. The train on which they’d been booked crashed, killing or injuring many of the passengers.
The sisters arrived in Richwood, West Virginia, in August of 1912, a mountain community of about 3,000 people at the time. They opened a school and a hospital. In 1920, they opened another hospital in Buckhannon, St. Joseph’s, now a 51-bed facility, which the Pallottine Missionary Sisters sold to United Hospital Center in 2015.
The Pallottine sisters arrived in Huntington in 1924. On Nov. 7, they admitted the first patient to their 35-bed hospital, a charity case. The sisters were nurses, cooks and cleaners. They grew fruits and vegetables, pounded nails and stoked the coal furnace.
St. Mary’s now has nearly 400 beds, a nursing school and a teaching facility for residents and fellows associated with the Joan C. Edwards Marshall University School of Medicine. It has centers of excellence in cancer treatment, cardiac care, emergency and trauma services, neuroscience and orthopedics.
Credit Courtesy of St. Mary’s Medical Center
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St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington, West Virginia.
The sale of the hospital was four years in the making. An agreement was signed with Cabell Huntington in 2014, but there were objections to the partnering of two of the state’s largest hospitals. The state legislature cleared the way for the transaction in 2016. The Vatican then gave its approval, with, Sr. Mary Grace said at the time, “the understanding that the values and mission established by the Pallottine Sisters will continue at St. Mary’s Medical Center after the transaction is complete.”
When the closure of the deal was announced, Jerry Gilbert, president of Marshall University, said he believed this new “comprehensive academic medical center” would become “a destination medical center – along the lines of some of the top clinics and hospitals in the nation.”
Entering The Public-Health Sphere
As CEO of the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, Janell Ray has come to know the sisters well.
Credit Eric Douglas / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
CEO of the Pallottine Foundation Janell Ray, right, sits with Sisters Mary Grace Barile, Mary Terence Wall and Joanne Obrochta, right to left.
“You have a group of elderly sisters, and this has been their way of life for their whole life,” Ray says. “This is what they know, everything’s changing, and it’s hard for them.”
But the sisters are embracing their new reality.
Allen Smart, founder of PhilanthropywoRx, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, serves as a consultant to the Pallottine Foundation board. While acknowledging the sadness the sisters are experiencing with the sale, he sees this transition into the public-health sphere as an opportunity to more proactively help define “what a healthy community means.”
“The sisters said, ‘Well, okay, we can’t continue to do business the way we’ve always done it. So what can we do?,” Ray says. “What can we do to continue our ministry to the poor, to the sick?’”
Credit Eric Douglas / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
From left to right, Sisters Mary Grace Barile, Mary Terence Walland Joanne Obrochta.
“Hospital work is changing,” Sr. Joanne says. “It’s changing gradually and it’s changing rapidly. It’s not just within the walls of the hospital. Through the foundation, we can also see that people are taken care of in the neighborhoods where it’s needed so badly today for so many different reasons.”
“Properly executed and listening to the right members of the community, and engaging people, the opportunities to spread their mission are really a lot greater in the foundation situation than in the hospital situation,” Smart says.
He cites, for example, the opportunity to advance services for pregnant women struggling with opioid addiction.
Credit Eric Douglas / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Sr. Mary Grace Barile.
Sr. Mary Grace sees this next step as a means of advancing “the values of our pioneer sisters.” Her message to the new leadership: “You know what we value and what our mission is, and we expect you to carry that out. We’re turning it over to you.”
“You hand it over to the laity and let them take over,” she says. “Educate, and move on,” exactly as Vincent Pallotti would have it.
“That’s our legacy as Pallottine sisters,” adds Sr. Mary Terence Wall. “We’re few now, and there are good lay people here.”
Still Working
A few miles from St. Mary’s Medical Center is a cemetery where so many Pallottine Missionary Sisters have been laid to rest.
Sr. Terence says that when she visits, she’s drawn to the dash on the headstone that separates the dates of a sister’s birth and death. “That dash is all the things they did in life,” she observes, “and nothing’s put there.”
Credit Eric Douglas / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Sr. Mary Terence Wall.
“There’s too much to put there,” Sr. Mary Grace offers.
“The Lord knows what was there,” Sr. Joanne affirms.
As do so many in the Huntington community. During the Great Depression, the hungry came regularly to the back of the hospital to be fed by the sisters. For years after, Sr. Joanne says, people would recall how “had it not been for the sisters with the bread line,” their families wouldn’t have survived.
When out in the community, Sr. Mary Grace says she’s often asked, “‘Is Sr. Joanne still around? Is she still working?’ She’s still working.”
As her 90th birthday approaches, Sr. Joanne arrives for a couple of hours of work three days a week. She now does pastoral ministry in oncology, pediatrics and obstetrics.
In a video chronicling the history of the Pallottine Missionary Sisters, Sr. Mary Grace notes that, “One thing Vincent always said is, ‘We’re not going to be many… We’re going to be few, but we’re going to be able to carry on the work.’”
West Virginia’s new Roman Catholic bishop was installed late last month at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling. Bishop Mark Brennan was previously auxiliary bishop of Baltimore.
Pope Francis named the 72-year-old Brennan to replace Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned in September 2018 amid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. Glynis Board spoke with the new bishop. Here’s some of that conversation.
***Editor’s Note: The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Board: The former Bishop Michael Bransfield left the diocese in a crisis of confidence. Archbishop Lori described a culture of fear that was created under his tenure, and there were measures put in place to try to ensure a higher degree of transparency and safeguards against abuse. What actions do you hope will address that eroded trust?
Brennan: I’ve long believed the only way to overcome evil is with good. You have to just do good things. Our faith is not meant to be sterile, it’s meant to be fertile, to produce good things. So to try to live our faith well, and to the works of charity and justice that our faith really propels us to engage in — that’s I think how you overcome bad behavior over the past. You can’t ignore it the past, you can’t deny that it happened. On the other hand, you also can look forward and try to live a better way. And I hope that I can be the kind of shepherd for the flock of this diocese that will lead by example, not just a words, to overcome a legacy of mistrust and fear and by a different kind of style of leadership.
Board: Are there decisions yet to be made that have anything to do with Michael Bransfield, that you have to make?
Brennan: I think as you’re probably well aware of the Holy See imposed on Bishop Bransfield two very significant prohibitions. And they are significant. He was planning to retire here. I’ve seen the very nice apartment that was built for him. He’s not going to get to live there. He’s not allowed by the pope to live in the state of West Virginia. The second one is that he’s not allowed to celebrate any public liturgy. The Catholic mass is that is the most common liturgy, but a baptism ceremony, a funeral outside of mass, a wedding ceremony outside of mass, those are liturgies too. For someone who has been doing that for nearly 50 years to be told, ‘You can’t do that anymore,’ no public masses, no public luxury of any kind — it’s a very significant prohibition.
What I’m asked to do is to oversee a process of him making some kind of amendment for the damage he caused to individuals and to the diocese. And that is in process. I’ve already begun consulting with people here. We were doing some analysis of spending to see what is an appropriate way to ask him to make amends. If he cooperates with this process it will show, I think, another side of him, which I hope we will see. If it is not cooperate we’ll still be able to impose a kind of amendment process on our own. [It would be] better with his cooperation, but it can still be done without it.
Board: It’s increasingly well known that the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese is one of the more wealthy diocese in the country. And yet here we are sitting in one of the poorest states and even one of the poorest neighborhoods in this region. How is that wealth being used to combat those cycles of poverty? Or how do you think it could be used in the future?
Brennan: There are things that I have learned there already, things that are done by the diocese with the money that it has — some of which comes from somebody who left us some oil wells down in Texas, and mineral rights somewhere. I’m going to find out more about that. At any rate, yes, there’s an endowment which seems to be fairly large — several hundred million dollars. The diocese is using that to support small schools and parishes that otherwise would otherwise close. They can’t maintain themselves. I think there are efforts being made by Catholic Charities in West Virginia to assist in in meeting the opioid crisis, which, this is like the epicenter for the whole country, from what I’ve learned, and I’m going to see if we can do more — remember, I’ve only been bishop here for eight days, so there’s a lot more for me to learn — but the resources are being used in a healthy way to sustain good works of the church and its schools and parishes and agencies.
Board: Michael Bransfield retired as many bishops do at 75 — and forgive me if this is an ageist question — some parishioners have expressed concerns since you’re already into your 70s that you won’t be here long enough to sustain positive change. Can you address that concern?
Brennan: Sure. It was intimated to me when I was asked, would I come here, that the room would be very flexible about that 75 age limit. Now, I could drop dead tomorrow. My doctor at an appointment on the 30th of July, he said Father Brennan, your parents gave you good genes, and you’ve taken pretty good care of them. So I have pretty good health, stamina, and keep going. So assuming that I can then I think 75 will come and go without any change in the leadership here.
Some Catholics may remember — and it was a boy when this happened — a fellow named Roncalli was elected Pope by the Cardinals 1958. And he was I think 77 years old. He lived another four or five years. He called the Second Vatican Council which just had a tremendous impact of life of the Catholic Church worldwide. In his brief, brief time as Pope.
It is possible to get something done if you work at it with purpose and determination and trusting God. So I hope that all that can be true.
Pope Francis named Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Mark Brennan to lead West Virginia’s Catholics on Tuesday following a scandal over the former bishop’s sexual harassment of adults and lavish spending of church money.
The 72-year-old Brennan replaces Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned in September after a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual and financial misconduct.
Last week, Francis barred Bransfield from public ministry and prohibited him from living in the diocese, while also warning that he will be forced to make amends “for some of the harm he caused.” Brennan will now help decide the extent of those reparations as he seeks to restore trust among the Catholic faithful.
Coming on the heels of a new wave of sex abuse allegations in the U.S., the Bransfield scandal added to the credibility crisis in the U.S. hierarchy. Several top churchmen received tens of thousands of dollars in church-funded personal gifts from Bransfield during his tenure in Wheeling-Charleston, which is located in one of the poorest U.S. states.
In his first comments after his appointment, Brennan said he would work to bring “true healing and renewal” to West Virginia. And in comments to the Catholic Review of the archdiocese of Baltimore, he said a main focus would be on rural poverty and victims of the opioid crisis, which has hit West Virginia particularly hard.
“There is immense need which is matched by immense desire and determination to reinvigorate the church here in West Virginia and across our nation,” he said, according to a statement from his new diocese.
Brennan, a Boston native who was ordained in Washington D.C., in 1976, spent time studying Spanish in the Dominican Republic and completed his theology studies at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was named auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 2016 and has ministered to the city’s Hispanic community.
After Bransfield’s resignation, Francis asked Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to oversee the diocese temporarily and complete a full investigation. The findings, first reported by The Washington Post, determined that Bransfield spent church funds on dining out, liquor, personal travel and luxury items, as well as personal gifts to fellow bishops and cardinals in the U.S. and Vatican.
Lori has said that Bransfield was able to get away with his behavior for so long because he created a “culture of fear of retaliation and retribution” that weakened normal checks and balances in the diocese. The diocese’s vicars have all resigned and been reassigned to parish work, and Lori recently announced new auditing and other measures to ensure church funds are properly administered.
Bransfield had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last year.
He has disputed the findings of Lori’s investigation, telling The Post “none of it is true,” but declining detailed comment on the advice of his lawyers.
The Wheeling-Charleston diocese includes nearly 75,000 Catholics and 95 parishes and encompasses the entire state of West Virginia.
Following an investigation into a West Virginia bishop for sexual and financial misconduct, the Vatican has banned him from public ministry and handed down other sanctions.
According to a letter from the pope’s diplomatic mission to the United States, former Bishop Michael Bransfield has been banned from presiding over or participating in public worship.
The letter, which was posted Friday to the website of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese, also states Bransfield is banned from living in the jurisdiction, which includes the entire state of West Virginia. Under the direction of a new bishop, Bransfield is also obligated to “make personal amends for some of the harm he caused.”
Bransfield stepped down in September 2018 after allegations of sexual harassment and financial misconduct, including gifting hundreds of thousands in cash to other Catholic leaders.
The findings of an internal investigation, released last month by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, found those allegations to be credible.
