O-blog-dee-o-blog-da

By Melanie Nathan, July 03,2015.

Truro Church in Fairfax Virginia, under the leadership of  Rev. Dr. Tory Baucum, is extending its anti-gay tentacles into the local Hispanic community.  Truro’s newest staff member, Jose Garrigo,  accompanied by his wife Lidia, will be joining the staff of Truro Church in September, ramping up the anti-gay split away Church’s outreach to the large Latino community in Northern Virginia.

Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia, left the Episcopal Church over the election of the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, after a long-running dispute over theological orthodoxy.

According to a message from Baucum, Garrigo will serve as the new Director of International Ministries.

Garrigo currently serves as the National Director of Alpha for Latinos, Alpha Multicultural, and is the Alpha USA Regional Director for the Colorado region.

Garrigo, a graduate of Denver Seminary,  is an ordained pastor with apparently according to a Church statement “a huge heart for reaching the un-churched;”

The statement continues:

“….he is excited about joining Truro and using his skills and giftings to expand the Kingdom here at Truro.  Jose is a Cuban-American and speaks three languages fluently – Spanish, English, and Catalan. His wife Lidia is from Spain; they have two adult children, a daughter Alba (who is recently married and is now expecting her first child) and a son Eric.”

Truro Church’s sordid past seems to have received a convenient revision in its Wikipedia page. But we can set the record straight here. (no pun intended!)

Their Wikipedia page notes:

Following the Protocol for Departing Congregations created by the Diocese of Virginia, Truro Church embarked on 40 Days of Discernment to consider its future in the Episcopal Church (TEC). This time of discernment led to a parish vote where the entire membership voted on whether to leave the Episcopal Church. On Sunday, December 17, 2006, 92 percent of the individual members of Truro Episcopal Church membership voted to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a mission initiative of the Anglican Church of Nigeria (a province in the worldwide Anglican Communion), but an entity that is not a branch of the Episcopal Church, under the leadership of the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of CANA. Joining Truro were other individuals from eleven other parishes in the Diocese of Virginia who also voted to leave the Episcopal Church and join CANA. CANA is a member of the Common Cause Partnership, which also includes the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Essentials Canada, the Anglican Mission in America, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Anglican Province of America, Forward in Faith North America. and the Reformed Episcopal Church. In June 2008, Truro was represented at the Global Anglican Future in Jerusalem.

Truro has also for a long while extended its anti-gay mission onto the African continent, with many missions to Uganda and other countries.  We recall its connection to Ugandan Member of Parliament, David Bahati, the author of The Kill the Gays Bill, relationship to Church member, Jack Klenk, a retired career federal Education Department official, who housed Bahati on a controversial visit to the United States.

A long court battle ensued between Truro and the Diocese, where Truro fought and lost its battle to retain the church property. Recently the feuding sided made shalom, enough for an agreement to ensue giving Truro a right to use the premises for free in exchange fort maintaining the property.

Vicky Gene Robinson is now a retired bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as diocesan bishop in March 2004.

Tory Baucum’s Cloudy Past

Court Rules against Anti-Gay Breakaway Episcopals in Church Property Case

by Melanie Nathan on January 12, 2012