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Top 10 Stories of 2018: Former Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Resigns Amid Abuse Allegation

File Photo by Scott McCloskey

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Intelligencer presents a look back at the past year with the top 10 stories of 2018, as voted on by the newspaper’s editorial staff. The top stories will run through Sunday.

WHEELING — The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston resigned in September amid an allegation that he sexually abused an adult.

The Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield ended his tenure Sept. 13 after serving the diocese for 13 years. Bransfield, 75, had just turned the age when canon law dictates bishops must submit their resignations to the Pope, but then the Pope decides when to accept the resignation.

Pope Francis accepted Bransfield’s immediately.

The sexual abuse allegation was made public upon Bransfield’s resignation. Specific details of the alleged incident have not been disclosed.

Controversy has surrounded the former bishop for years. In 2012, testimony during a criminal trial of other priests accused of abuse in Philadelphia claimed that Bransfield knew about another priest sexually abusing minors. Bransfield has denied that allegation. He’s not commented since the new allegation came to light in September.

Shortly after Bransfield’s resignation, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he wanted to review the current sexual misconduct allegation. Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, who was appointed apostolic administrator of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese following Bransfield’s resignation, also received an order from the Pope to investigate.

“The allegations against Bishop Bransfield are disturbing and warrant a close review by the state of West Virginia to ensure that West Virginians are protected,” Morrisey said in September.

Tim Bishop, spokesman for the diocese here, said the issue was a canonical matter but that the church would cooperate with any investigation.

“The archbishop is very adamant that this investigation be lay-led,” he said. “I think he is committed that this investigation gets to the truth and as expeditiously as possible.”

But when the diocese didn’t include Bransfield on a list it released Nov. 29 of priests who worked here and had “credible” allegations of sexual abuse — either in the diocese or outside of it — Bishop also defended that decision. He said the prior allegations against Bransfield were not credible.

“Allegations made against Michael Bransfield involving alleged charter issues took place while he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,” he said. “The archdiocese concluded those allegations to be non-credible, they therefore were not added to the (Wheeling-Charleston) list.”

Bransfield already had made the news twice during 2018. In the spring, Wheeling Central Catholic High School named its gymnasium after him. Wheeling Hospital followed suit over the summer after it named its new continuous care center for him.

Bransfield was ordained and installed Feb. 22, 2005, as the eighth bishop of Wheeling-Charleston at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. He was born Sept. 8, 1943, in Philadelphia and was ordained May 15, 1971, to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

From 1971 to 1973, Bransfield served as assistant pastor of St. Albert the Great Parish in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1973, he served as a teacher, chaplain and chairman of the religion department at Lansdale (Pennsylvania) Catholic High School.

From 1980 through the 1990s, Bransfield held a number of positions at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. In October 1986, he was appointed the 10th director of the National Shrine, and when the National Shrine was designated a basilica in 1990, he was named the first rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

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