Who Is The Very Reverend Christian Canon Tutor, OSA? -- I

For starters, you can see him on Youtube. He's dressed in a summer version of the Augustinian habit. Full disclosure: my wife and I attend a Catholic parish run by the Augustinian order, and we also support Augustinian charities. We've come to know and view with the utmost respect several real Augustinian fathers. The Very Reverend Christian Canon Tutor, OSA is not one of those. Let's get that out of the way. Much of what he says about himself is weasel-worded and misleading, starting with his remark on Youtube at about 0:52 that "in seminary, we're trained for this". He's never quite been to a seminary, in the sense that someone addressing him as "Father" might be led to believe. (We'll get to the specifics in due course.)

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.

'You know how when parents make you go to church and you rebel?' Tutor said. 'My rebellion was the other way.'

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.

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.

Was he ever an Augustinian monk? Is he still entitled to style himself OSA?

I received the following reply:

I have never heard of Terence Tutor, and I have been an Augustinian for 45 years.

---Gary Sanders OSA
Provincial

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.