I'm not ready to pay to get more info on this lawsuit, but it looks like the plaintiffs want money, which of course we've seen before.
My wife suggests that the amount in dispute must be significant to take the matter into federal court. The plaintiffs are represented by Lytton, Williams, Messina & Hankin LLP, which means they are also spending big bucks, presumably from parish resources.
If I were Mrs Bush, I'd be pretty upset if Marsh and Rivers hadn't given me a heads-up over whatever circumstances were involved in Williams's departure from Trinity.
We don't know anything of the "unresolved moral concerns" that may have been connected with Williams's departure from Trinity, although let's face it, responsible adults (if there in fact are any) among the Bush-ACA faction at St Mary's should have been fully apprised of them, and they should have been given a full opportunity to turn down the deal. (I will say that there are ladies of advancing years among that group who are quite capable of saying "Immorality? Sounds intriguing.")
But after all, this is the ACA. St Mary's has a "vestry" that hires a rector, but not really. It also has an absentee "rector", who theoretically is the one who hires other clergy. I would assume that if he's the "rector", it would have been his decision alone to hire Williams as "pastor", whatever that means. My guess is that Frederick Rivers, in his capacity as "rector", did what Brian Marsh told him to do and hired Williams, who had to get out of Dodge in a hurry, and St Mary's was a convenient place to park him.
The best thing that could have happened that might lead to a rector's dismissal on moral grounds would be an affair with an adult female parishioner. There's no guarantee that this is what happened, though. There's also the thing that used to be quaintly called a "morals offense", which might cause greater disquiet among conservative Anglicans. And then there's ACA Canon 46, "Of Offenses for which Bishops, Presbyters, or Deacons May Be Tried"
Section 46.1 A Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon of this Church shall be liable to presentment and trial for the following offenses, viz:That happened, after all, to Williams's colleague "Bishop" Hiles, and to the author of the whole freak show, "Archbishop" Falk, when both were Episcopal priests and had gotten a bit frisky with the pew. As these bishops see things, no big deal. We all have our secrets, after all, we'll just keep this little business among ourselves.
- Crime or immorality
This isn't up there with the page that had Cannon Morello presiding over the Angelican parish, but it's close. And at least the guy who put the earlier blooper up had the excuse that he was a loser -- even Mrs Bush eventually got tired of him. But this one had to have come straight from the "Bishop" himself!
I've heard Episcopalians described as "Catholic lite". I think I would characterize "continuing Anglicans" as Catholic dumb.
Faust appears to be retired from Episcopal rectorships at parishes in Florida and Texas. Public records give his age at 67 and his residence in Saco, ME, which leads me to believe he's a supply priest here, at least for the time being. An easy couple hundred a week, don't ask too many questions.
Still, I keep wondering, given typical memberships, how any ACA parish can even heat the place in the winter and keep the lights on, much less pay anyone. Fr Faust, you're best off collecting your supply honorarium while you can and moving on.
Oh, did I mention that last Sunday, the 13th of February, we had 17 at the 8 o’clock Mass and 38 at the 10 o’clock Mass? It’s probably a record for any Sunday other than Easter-day. And in February, in the midst of all the cold and snow!So a total Sunday attendance of 55 at one of the largest parishes in the Diocese of the Northeast is exceptional! (And that includes choir and altar party at the 10:00, which means the nave must have been pretty forlorn. Reminds me of a former Episcopal parish, where we had to lean across two rows of pews to exchange the peace.) The news item in the Concord, NH Monitor that discussed "Christian" Tutor's ordination said that parish had a membership of 45 and worshiped Sunday afternoons in a Lutheran church, itself a rather sad-looking A-Frame.
Very little in the Tri-State area around New York City -- the parish in Elizabeth, NJ comes up on Google Street View as a parking lot; maybe someone can clarify this. St Joseph's Brooklyn is the only substantial building, but not large, while the Queens parish appears to be in a storefront. So much for the biggest urban area in the US.
Pretty much every other parish in the Diocese of the Northeast is in exurban or downright rural areas. A puzzle is St Elizabeth's Chapel Tuxedo Park, which began as a family chapel of the J.P.Morgan banking family. The history here must be intriguing, since J.P.Morgan himself was an enthusiastic Episcopalian, and the chapel must have been a TEC institution until fairly recently. I also assume it has an endowment, which must be among the few actual sources of income for the ACA.
Pretty much the same goes for the Diocese of the Eastern US -- what of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Washington, Richmond, Pittsburgh, etc etc etc? Again, a scattering of little storefronts and prefabs in rural areas, the parish in Allentown, PA about the only exception.
Same for the Diocese of the Missouri Valley, roughly a dozen little prefabs or storefronts with just a few substantial buildings anywhere. And the Diocese of the West is simply moribund, a few converted residences, a couple of rentals in funeral parlors and whatnot, and two real buildings where they can't seem to hold onto supply priests.
In 2012, I estimated an average size of 60 for ACA parishes in good standing. Thirty is probably generous. To be nice, I estimated 19 as an average mission size. Ten may be closer to the truth.
Where is the membership? And following on that, where are the pledges? Where are the diocesan tithes? Where is the money? How would even seizing St Mary of the Angels, obtaining title outright, and selling the place, do anything at all for this sorry little denomination? What do Marsh and his cronies really have in mind?
The Armchair Detective at the Freedom for St Mary site keeps coming back to the question of criminal conspiracy. But civil penalties alone in the St Mary's legal proceedings would probably spell personal ruin for most of the ACA bishops -- and that leaves aside the potential for further personal indiscretions that would embroil the denomination in scandal.
So how many children are now at risk from priests who've been eased out of the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, ACNA, or other denominations and hired by the ACA without background checks? How many faithful parishioners will either need to find new spiritual homes when their parishes dissolve within the next few years, or how many parishes will remain viable enough to move to another pitiable "continuing Anglican" denomination? (My advice to all, frankly, would be not to wait, go into the ACNA now, and by the way, get that background check on Fr ____ when you do.)
The last time I looked at the ACA's numbers was in November 2012. I think my estimate of the time, a total membership of about 2300, was too generous -- it's probably more like half that.
Here's my count of parish building size, based on a recent tour of diocesan web sites and visits to all parish web sites. Not all have photos of their buildings; where they don't, I've tried to use Google Street View to get better information. But here's a rough tally by building type, based on personal appraisal of what I can see on the web, supplemented by specific information on parish web sites where it's available:
Inactive parishes, no building address, meets irregularly or not at all: 6
Home missions: 5
Worship in rented space (storefronts or other denomination churches during off hours): 14
Converted residences, larger than home missions: 7
Ugly prefab steel buildings: 18
Real stone or wood traditional church buildings: 13
So there's another indicator of what the denomination really is -- not much there, when you really start looking. We're back to asking where the money is, because a year or so from now, Marsh, Strawn, Williams, Rivers, and so forth are going to need to find some serious money, both to pay judgments and pay their own (if the Armchair Detective is to be believed) criminal attorneys.
For starters, the opinion is "unpublished", which means it can't be used as a precedent.
One of the most straightforward reasons for granting review is to secure "uniformity of decision" - to ensure that trial courts have a consistent body of law to follow. Because unpublished decisions are not considered precedent and therefore do not affect California law (Cal. R. Ct. 8.1115(a)), they are unlikely to be accepted for review under this criterion.The appellate court also accepted the elected vestry's position that established principles of contract law and established precedent could allow a trial court to determine the facts of the case. This means that the supreme court is unlikely to decide that some new area of the law needs to be clarified as a result of the case -- California has had a fairly large number of cases stemming from ownership and control of church property in recent years, due to the large number of parish defections in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. The elected vestry's attorneys used these cases as precedent.
In addition, the appeals court took a "least drastic" approach in its decision, sending the case back for trial, rather than awarding the case to the elected vestry as it had requested. It appears to me that the appeals court was deliberately adopting a low profile in this case in order to avoid review by the supreme court, although nothing is certain in these situations.
A successful petition for review does not merely harp on errors in the lower courts. Instead, it demonstrates convincingly how the court of appeal's decision significantly affects a broad range of Californians; or presents a conflict between lower courts that must be settled; or both. At the state's high court, where only a small fraction of requests for review can be granted, nothing less will do.The California Supreme Court will take at least 60 days to decide whether to review the case, although the likelihood is high that it will not. If it decides not to review, the case goes back for trial, which is the outcome Mrs Bush and the ACA have tried to avoid from the start.
"Bishop" (or is it "Pastor") Williams is apparently now saying mass at St Mary's. Like his colleagues, the man is reckless and a dangerous incompetent.
Bishop Marsh, the Rev Christian Tutor, Rector of All Saints Anglican Concord under your supervision, styles himself "OSA" in e-mails and on his parish biography. This abbreviation is normally taken to mean that one is a member of the Roman Catholic Order of St Augustine, and public statements from the ACA have sometimes referred to Tutor as "Augustinian". The attached e-mail from Fr Tutor's former priory in Oregon makes it clear that Tutor has never been an Augustinian monk and is not entitled to style himself OSA. Nor is he now a Roman Catholic.After only the briefest reflection, I decided not to send this, or anything like it. For whatever reason, Marsh hasn't answered my previous e-mails, except for a reply early in the saga of the ACA's seizure of St Mary's suggesting that I'm the only one complaining here. And of course, he takes no action -- the individual who contacted me about bizarre allegations against an ACA diocesan said she would contact Marsh, but as far as I'm aware, no action was taken. He took no action when I notified him of Robert Bowman's arrest for child pornography. He took no action when I notified him that Anthony Morello had vested himself fully as if for mass in the St Mary's parish in the middle of the night before tacitly endorsing a physical assault by St Mary's dissidents against other parishioners. (If nothing else, isn't this sacrilege?) He didn't answer when I notified him that the dissidents, in control of the upper level of the parish, habitually dropped heavy objects on the floor and played loud recorded music when other parishioners held mass in the parish hall below. (If nothing else, isn't this sacrilege?)I hope you will consider that many people may find it misleading if Fr Tutor continues to style himself OSA. I hope you will discuss this with him and ask that he remove the references to OSA from the All Saints Anglican web site, stop using OSA in his e-mail signature, and not refer to himself as "Augustinian" or "OSA" in any other communication speaking as a priest in the ACA. While this is not a major issue, as a Roman Catholic who attends a parish run by authentic Augustinian priests, I find this not only potentially misleading but vaguely comical and even offensive, and it appears that Catholic religious familiar with his case see it as a matter of concern.
Many thanks for your attention to this matter.
The problem I see is that the stuff I've been complaining about isn't small. It involves violations of the ACA's own canon law, "conduct unbecoming", and failure to take minimal measures to protect children and other vulnerable people. And it hasn't been isolated incidents: as far as I can see, no effective background check was made before hiring Anthony Morello, Robert Bowman, or Terrance "Christian" Tutor, as well as an unnamed ACA diocesan bishop. Violations of canon law have been repeated.
Nor have these been individual inadvertent oversights by one or two bishops. Daren Williams hired Anthony Morello, apparently during a period when he was behaving erratically before he was forced into retirement -- but Stephen Strawn and then Brian Marsh separately endorsed Morello's conduct and promoted him, twice. The ACA House of Bishops commended him for all he'd done not long before his death. Brian Marsh presumably approved the hiring of Robert Bowman without a background check, but when Owen Williams replaced him as episcopal visitor, he took no action when Bowman's child pornography arrest was reported. George Langberg "accepted Christian Tutor's renewal of solemn vows" (whatever in the world that means) without a background check in 2006, but Brian Marsh ordained him a deacon in 2007. Owen Williams, now a bishop, somehow told both Langberg and Marsh that this was OK -- in fact, this may have been as close as the ACA came to making a background check.
Let's not forget that the elder statesman of both the ACA and the TAC is Louis Falk, who was deposed as an Episcopal priest in 1965 and has secrets of his own. His own history in the "continuing Anglican" movement has been one of jurisdiction-hopping, uncanonical actions, and promoting disreputable protégés. A fish rots from the head.
The ACA bishops are clearly a small clique that operates by exempting itself from normal expectations -- this is precisely the behavior C.S.Lewis describes in his essay The Inner Ring:
Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”There's no point in trying to tell people like that anything. They all have secrets. That's why they feel comfortable with each other and why they hire and promote other people with secrets. But at bottom, it's why I think there's no hope for the ACA.
It is difficult to know exactly how Tutor came to the ACA's attention in Oregon, except that the source we linked on Wednesday notes that Tutor was a "long time friend" of Owen Rhys Williams, who from 1998 to 2003 was Parochial Vicar and then Priest in Charge of then-ACA parish St Mark's Portland, OR. Public records also place Williams at two addresses in Salem, OR during the approximate times Tutor also lived there in the St Joseph's Catholic Church rectory. Tutor's incomplete and weasel-worded official bio on the All Saints Concord, NH web site says he
has served the Church as a Pastoral Care Provider in a variety of parishes and institutions in Oregon including St. Nicholas Ranch/ Holy Family Chapel in Scotts Mills, a residential institution for men in recovery, that was sponsored by the Diocese of the West, Anglican Church in America.By "the Church" here, he presumably means not the ACA but the Church Universal, since as far as I can determine, the other institutions he was involved with in Oregon were the Brigittine priory and St Joseph's Salem, both Catholic. St. Nicholas Ranch/ Holy Family Chapel in Scotts Mills was associated with an ACA priest, Scott Troyer, who by Tutor's account in an e-mail to me was "terribly haunted by addiction". It closed in 2002 due to Troyer's "breakdown", according to Tutor, and Troyer passed away in 2004. (This would obviate any subsequent check of that reference, of course.) I'm told by another source connected with the ACA Diocese of the West that Tutor's connection with that organization was unclear, although he was around and calling himself "Brother Christian".
Following his exclaustration, according to the prior of his former Brigittine community, Tutor was no longer a member of that or any other community, released from monastic vows, and not entitled to call himself "Brother", at least as far as it implied membership in a monastic community. The other day we saw that in 2002, Tutor had also identified himself to a police officer as "Rev Terrance Tutor". In other words, during the period when it seems likely that Owen Rhys Williams knew Tutor in Oregon, Tutor was impersonating both a priest and a monk, although he hadn't been ordained in any denomination, and he'd been separated from his monastic community since 1997.
In his official parish bio, Tutor goes on to say,
In September of 2006, the Most Reverend George Langberg, Bishop of the Diocese of the Northeast, Anglican Church in America, received Father Christian’s renewal of Solemn Vows as a monk, and canonically established him into the Diocese of the Northeast as a Religious following the Rule of St. Augustine.It's very difficult to determine what happened here. Tutor told me in an e-mail that
I have no other religious of my rule within our jurisdiction [i.e., he is not actually in a community], but I still follow the Rule of St. Augustine which I vowed to do in 1987, and have tried to lead the life of perfection in vows while here in the Northeast. The Bishop of the Diocese takes the position of superior--which is done in the same form in some RC dioceses that have hermits and consecrated virgins who live in the same positions as I do within the DNE.The current Catholic status of hermits is in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
We see, therefore, that the Church has always been anxious to form the hermits into communities. Nevertheless, many preferred their independence and their solitude. They were numerous in Italy, Spain, France, and Flanders in the seventeenth century. Benedict XIII and Urban VIII took measures to prevent the abuses likely to arise from too great independence. Since then the eremitic life has been gradually abandoned, and the attempts made to revive it in the last century have had no success.The whole entry is peppered with references to the possibility of abuse, and considering the apparent incompatibility Tutor had with an established community, the potential for abuse is hard to ignore in his case -- as the Virtus director said in yesterday's post, we live in nutty times. And Tutor is not in solitude -- he has trusted access as a priest to children and other vulnerable people. We also saw in the Bede Parry case that following his apparent exclaustration from the Benedictine community in 1990, he attempted to join a different order in 2000. However, this order required psychological testing and presumably other evaluations, and rejected his application. According to a Catholic source,
the decision of a full member, someone who has professed final vows, to leave her or his community and, in some cases, join another community is a serious situation. This process is not engaged in lightly and is a time of great discernment, prayer, and conversation for both the individual and the community. After all, final vows means for life, not “for as long as I feel like it” or “’till something better comes along.” That being said, serious reasons do arise when a person can legitimately no longer live as a member of a particular community. These reasons are for the person and the leadership of the community to discern and are later witnessed by Rome for the valid dispensation from vows or transfer of vows.For a former Catholic religious to leave a community (and be dispensed from Catholic vows) to become sort of a freelance guy in a habit under an Anglican bishop, without membership in an established community, is a highly unusual and very serious situation rife with the potential for abuse. It's hard for me to think that Bishop Langberg had the remotest idea of what he was doing. (And there is no form for "renewal of solemn vows" in the 1928 BCP -- did they sit down over a beer to do this, or what?) Langberg probably never considered that he would be serving as an enabler for Tutor's puzzling need to impersonate a member of the Order of St Augustine.
And what actual supervision could Tutor receive under Langberg? They were three states and 260 miles apart. Certainly no witness by Rome to validate any "transfer" of vows could have taken place. I would suppose that the whole of the discernment, prayer, and conversation that might have taken place was Owen Rhys Williams telling Langberg that this would be a good idea-- possibly because nobody liked him in Oregon, and he needed a new start because the Catholics were blackballing him, which is certainly the story Tutor gave me.
What was Owen Williams's role in this process? What was the relationship between Williams and Tutor prior to Williams's 2003 arrival in New Hampshire? What was the nature of any possible relationship among Williams, Tutor, and then-Rector of St Mark's Portland Robin Connors, who by all accounts had his own serious struggles with dependency? For that matter, since Connors was a Louis Falk protege (and Falk was Presiding Bishop of the ACA until 2005, with a record of meddling even after retirement), what was Falk's role, if any? How might this have affected any decision not to check Tutor's references at the Brigittine priory where he'd spent ten years prior to exclaustration? Was Langberg ever aware that Tutor felt that somehow "renewing" vows to Langberg as an Anglican bishop entitled him to call himself an Augustinian monk, then an Augustinian priest, and use the title OSA? Is Brian Marsh aware of this?
The most generous explanation here is dangerous incompetence, although that's only the most generous.
While we know nothing of whether specific incidents of any sort resulted in Tutor's exclaustration, nor whether he was ever suspected of sexual impropriety, the Parry case provides somewhat more insight into what may be a parallel case of exclaustration in a Catholic religious community and an example of the real danger if an Anglican denomination does not inquire fully into the circumstances involved. This is an obscure subject, I'm not a canon lawyer, and Catholic sources stress that every exclaustration involves unique circumstances and conditions. But given the Parry case, it should ring some alarm bells.
The chronology here shows that, while the Catholic Church was very slow in its initial response to Parry's sexual activity, by 1987, it was fully aware of it and had taken action to (in the words of the chronology) place him on "three-year leave". Since exclaustrations can be for periods of one year or three years, and since Parry was a priest in a religious order, this appears to have been an exclaustration, not just a leave. In 1990, at the end of the period, Parry's abbot told him "it would not be wise" for him to return to the order, although Parry was allowed to continue functioning as a Catholic priest outside the order (his actual employment in this capacity appears to have been intermittent after this). This suggests that the result of the period of discernment involved in an exclaustration may be a not entirely voluntary decision to leave the order.
In 2000, Parry applied to join another Catholic religious order, but the order administered various psychological tests that sent up warning signals and rejected his application, and the Catholic Church eventually eased him out of the priesthood.
By 2002, Parry had applied to become an Episcopal priest. While accounts of who said what to whom at that time differ, the record appears to show that as part of the reception process, then-Episcopal Bishop of Nevada Schori spoke to Parry's abbot at his former community. The abbot claimed that he did notify Schori of Parry's record. It's worth pointing out that all discussions of the Parry case simply assume that this is the normal procedure for transferring a former Catholic monk or priest to another denomination. This procedure also included psychological testing by TEC, although the TEC tests apparently did not bring up Parry's proclivities. The question is simply whether Schori took appropriate action on hearing of Parry's record as a Catholic, although there is no question that a reference check and even psychological exams took place.
The Parry case also points out that there were very numerous incidents of misconduct by Parry within the order prior to his exclaustration and constructive expulsion, and it appears that exclaustration can be a very serious last resort taken only when lesser measures fail. If the ACA was not asking questions about Terrance Tutor in 2007, it should be asking very serious questions now.
The Roman Catholic Virtus program director makes this point:
During a recent VIRTUS® meeting at a diocese, the issue of screening and selection was explored. I discussed the fact that best practices standards require a church or religious organization to conduct a background and reference check on every staff member—regardless whether they interact with children—and on all volunteers who interact with children. A participant in the back of the room raised his hand and said, “If you want me to do a background and reference check on every staff member and on every volunteer who interacts with children, you’re nuts.” It was neither the first nor will it be the last time that someone will call me “nuts.” And, actually, I appreciated the opening because it was an excellent opportunity to illustrate the value of best practices standards. “You know,” I replied, “It is a nutty time we live in—a time for best practices nuts like me.”Tutor, in his capacity as "Safe Environment Coordinator" for the ACA Diocese of the Northeast, replied to a query on what best practices were for the ACA, replied,
Within this Diocese of the Northeast, we have a comprehensive policy that mirrors that of the Roman Catholic Dioceses around the nation.The ACA-DNE policy does in fact say,
Given the unique role and particular confidence that persons place in deacons, priests, and bishops, all applicants for ecclesiastical studies for ordination as deacons and priests, as well as all current deacons, priests, and bishops are held to the highest standards and undergo the strictest scrutiny thorough background screening, as mandated by the Anglican Church In America’s Constitution, Canons and Policies.So what check did the bishops do on Tutor? My own minimal-diligence check showed he lied about claiming to be, or to have been, an Augustinian monk. Any weasel-wording ("but he used to live under the Augustinian rule, after all") would not, presumably, conform to the "strictest scrutiny" test. But irrespective of anything else, nobody needs to administer psychological tests or put the guy on a couch to recognize that he has a very troubling need to impersonate an Augustinian priest, in dress and title, when he is clearly not what he claims to be.
Instead, the bishops have made him "safe environment coordinator". I would not advise anyone looking for a safe environment to go anywhere near the ACA.
What is the problem with the bishops?
Public records show that in the early 2000s, he lived at an address corresponding to the rectory at St Joseph's Catholic Church in Salem, Oregon. When I asked him about this, he replied in an e-mail, "Helped at St. Joseph parish as a pastoral associate while discerning a different path of service to the Church. . . . I was non-stipendary, but lived in the rectory." However, he does not list this in his official bio, although since he mentions that it was part of another process of discernment, it may have involved determining his suitability for the secular priesthood, if not that of a religious.
In 2002, he received a speeding ticket in Jackson County, Oregon, and gave his name as "Rev Terrance Tutor", with an address at the St Joseph's rectory. This suggests an attempt, apparently not unique, to overstate or falsify his qualifications, since in 2002 he was not an ordained minister in any denomination. We must assume the process of discernment which he undertook as Terrance Tutor at St Joseph's stopped before any entry to postulancy or seminary, for whatever reason.
However, later in the same e-mail he said, "I petitioned Bishop Langberg to become a priest in his jurisdiction as it was far away from the West coast and I knew that the RCC would never relent in their blackballing of my suitability." This goes to the question of reference checks, which has been at the back of my mind since I attended Virtus training. As Terrance Tutor on the West Coast, he'd apparently become well enough known within Catholic circles, including experiences in two separate processes of discernment, for them to determine he was apparently not suitable for the religious life or the secular priesthood, to the point that further inquiries would result in his being relentlessly blackballed, at least for Catholic positions on the West Coast.
So he went to the East Coast and a different denomination, and he apparently resumed his monastic name of Christian, rather than his given name of Terrance. Does this ring any alarm bells here? The actual details are revealing as well:
03 Aug 2007--Trinity Anglican Church will host visiting bishops and clergy as they gather from all parts of the Northeast. They will gather in Rochester to take part in the ancient ceremonies of the church for the ordination of a man to the sacred order of priest. The Rev. Terrance Tutor, a deacon in the Anglican Church in America, will be ordained by the Right Rev. George Langberg at 11 a.m. on Saturday.The statement that he "is an Augustinian monk" is absolutely false, based on e-mails from the Western provincial of the Augustinian order and the prior of his former Brigittine community. I was able to determine this via e-mail in less than a day. This would, or should, have been part of any standard pre-employment reference check, and if the falsehood had been revealed, would have been an absolute disqualifier in any normal pre-employment evaluation, leaving aside any inquiry into one's suitability for the priesthood.Deacon Tutor is a Augustinian monk and is known to many in the community and church as Brother Christian. He maintains the traditional garb of a "Religious" – cassock, scapular and cowl. He holds degrees from Southern Oregon University and Marylhurst University where he earned his Master's Degree in Pastoral Theology. His long time friend, the Rev. Owen Williams, invited him to come to New England and speak to Bishop Langberg about serving in this diocese.
Was any background or reference check ever made prior to Tutor's ordination as a deacon, much less a priest? Presumably not -- Tutor himself suggests that in New Hampshire, under Bishop Langberg, he was safe. But wait -- from the account we have, his long time friend, the Rev Owen Williams, apparently vouched for him. I have no idea what this suggests. What did Williams, Tutor's long time friend, know of his history in Oregon and the results of his various discernment processes as a Catholic? What does this say about Williams?
I’m currently dealing with an Anglican priest (Anglican Church in America) who was a member of the Briggitine Priory in Amity, OR from 1986 to 1997, when he left via exclaustration and a decision to leave the order. He is currently styling himself OSA.I received this reply:Are monks in the Briggitine Priory members of the Order of St Augustine? It appears that you are actually Order of The Most Holy Savior. In addition, if you have left the Order are you still a member and entitled to style yourself as such?
Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.
Dear Mr John Bruce,The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Thank you for your e-mail.
Although, you did not mention who the former brother is, we can deduce from the facts you presented to us who it is and we understand your concern.
The Order of the Most Holy Savior uses the Rule of Saint Augustine but we are not part of the Augustinian Order per se just like the Dominican Order uses the rule of St Augustine. The Order of the Most Holy Savior is an Order of itself and we use the Rule of the Savior as given to Saint Bridget of Sweden, our Foundress, as supplement to the Augustinian Rule.
If a brother left the Order or has been expelled from it he has no more right to use the initials after his name of whatever Order he was a member of, much less style himself as still a member of that Order.
No former member of this community of the Order of the Most Holy Savior has been granted the privilege of using the initials OSsS (Order of the Most Holy Savior) nor OSA (Order of St Augustine - which we cannot grant) after his name upon leaving the community/Order. Also, our community does not grant to former members any official status to act on our behalf nor do they have the right to represent our community in any way nor purport themselves as still part of our community as a brother.
We hope we have answered your questions. If you have any other questions or clarifications needed, please do not hesitate to contact us.
In Christ Jesus,
Brother Bernard Ner Suguitan, OSsS Prior
He is Rector of the ACA parish All Saints Concord, NH, which is a post-Gene Robinson breakaway from the Concord Episcopal parish, has about 45 members, and worships Sunday afternoons at Concordia Lutheran Church. He is also the liturgist for the ACA Diocese of the Northeast and the "safe environment coordinator" for the diocese. My understanding is that he is investigating how Robert Bowman was hired as an interim priest at All Saints Fountain Valley without regard to his child pornography arrest, as well as the allegations of bizarre sexual misconduct against an ACA diocesan bishop.
It's worth pointing out, though, that Tutor was brought to New Hampshire from the West Coast by his good friend Owen Rhys Williams and ordained in the ACA on Williams's initiative. Since Bowman was employed at All Saints Fountain Valley on Williams's watch as episcopal visitor to that parish, there may be a conflict of interest in the investigation. In addition, an investigation of that type would normally involve a canon to the ordinary and a chancellor, not a liturgist/safe environment coordinator.
Christian Canon Tutor, AKA Terrance Edward Tutor, AKA Terrance-Christian Tutor, AKA Brother Christian, AKA Rev Terrance Tutor, was born in 1968 in Orange, Calif. In an article in the Concord, NH Monitor soon after his ordination in the ACA in 2007, it was reported,
Tutor grew up in Los Angeles in a family that did not attend church. He started going to church as an act of rebellion, he said.Nevertheless, Tutor was a member of the Class of 1984 at St Vincent’s Seminary in Montebello, Calif, and the Class of 1986 at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, Calif. Whether or not his family attended church, they were clearly anxious for him to have a Catholic education, and that he would attend mass or consider a vocation in that context hardly seems like an act of rebellion. Things don't add up here.'You know how when parents make you go to church and you rebel?' Tutor said. 'My rebellion was the other way.'
The Concord Monitor story reported that Tutor entered a monastery three months after graduating from high school. This would be the Brigittine priory in Amity, OR. As far as I can determine, he was an ordinary religious and not a priest there. In 1997, according to his published account, he "transferred to active ministry". However, he explained to me in an e-mail that this was an "exclaustration", which I learned separately is "usually associated with a period of discernment when an individual is considering a departure from the religious institute." In Tutor's case, according to his e-mail, this was for a period of one year, after which Tutor presumably finalized his decision to leave the order. To call this a "transfer to active ministry" is misleading, except insofar as all Christians are active ministers -- but in this context, that's meaningless.
This also raises a serious question as to whether Tutor is entitled to style himself OSA, as he clearly does in his parish bio. The monks in the Brigittine priory are members of the Order of The Most Holy Savior, and if you've left the organization, you're no longer a member. I sent the following e-mail to the Western Province of the Order of St Augustine:
Terrance Edward Tutor was apparently a monk in the Briggitine monastery in Amity, OR between 1986 and 1997. At that time he took the name Brother Christian. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 2007. He continues to style himself OSA based apparently on his status as a monk before he left the monastery.I received the following reply:Was he ever an Augustinian monk? Is he still entitled to style himself OSA?
I have never heard of Terence Tutor, and I have been an Augustinian for 45 years.Things keep not adding up, but as my wife says, "You and I keep expecting 2 + 2 to equal 4. When you're dealing with the ACA, nothing ever comes out that way. 2 + 2 is always something more like 3.6." Brother Christian is no different.---Gary Sanders OSA
Provincial