Scandal priest Father Cutie goes over to the other side

Scandal priest Father Cutie goes over to the other side

Florida is gripped by a tale with a heady mix of sex, sand, God, celebrity and celibacy

By David Usborne in New York

Sunday, 31 May 2009

It will be standing – or kneeling – room only at the Church of the Resurrection in Miami when America's most famous Catholic Casanova, Alberto Cutie, makes a guest appearance this morning to deliver the sermon. Never mind that this particular congregation is not actually Catholic. Since Thursday, he hasn't been with Rome either.

Happily, Fr Cutie, always dashing in his dog collar, has never been averse to publicity. So great was his following on Spanish-language television and radio where he dispensed advice on God, love, and relationships, that he earned the nickname Padre Oprah. Yet right now he is at the centre of a national kerfuffle of a scope even he would surely never have wished for. But it's what happens when you juggle sex, celibacy and the church.

This charismatic priest famously took his secret girlfriend, a divorced mother, to a public Florida beach and frolicked with her on the sand. This was a month ago, the scene was illicitly photographed and the images published on the pages of a Mexican tabloid. Before you could say "vows", Fr Cutie, 40, was forced to give up his Miami Beach parish.

Barely had the Catholic community of south Florida recovered, when a surprise press conference was called on Thursday by Bishop Leo Frade of the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Miami. Fr Cutie was switching sides, leaving the Catholic faith to join the Episcopal Church, which is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Episcopalians, of course, don't mind their priests canoodling, marrying even. Saying he had gone through a "spiritual and deep ideological struggle," Fr Cutie said he was "continuing the call to spread God's love" and paid tribute to the spiritual home he was fleeing. "I will always love the Catholic Church and all its members who are committed in their faith and have enriched my life in so many ways," he said.

While it will be a year before Fr Cutie can officiate formally at Episcopalian services, the fall-out from the affair has been immediate. "Fr Cutie is removing himself from full communion with the Catholic Church and thereby forfeiting his rights as a cleric," boomed the leader of Floridian Catholics, Archbishop John Favalora, who added that the priest remains "bound by his promise to live a celibate life, which he freely embraced at ordination. Only the Holy Father can release him from that obligation."

Bishop Frade begged to differ. "That promise is not recognised by our church. If you can find it in the Bible that priests should be celibate, that will be corrected," he said, acknowledging that the saga was straining relations between the two churches in Florida. "The only thing we can say is that we pray for ecumenical relations. I am sorry, they are sorry, and we love them."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/scandal-priest-father-cutie--goes-over-to-the-other-side-1693515.html


Bishop Leo Frade, Fr Alberto Cutie and Ruhama Buni Canellis during
Thursday's press conference at Trinity Cathedral, Miami

Episcopal Church is like the Catholic Church, but without the Pope, the homophobia, the psychotic priesthood, etc.

One of our local Episcopal parish priests likes to be referred to as "Father Richard". When I speak of him in front of them and mention his wife and kids, you can see the cognitive dissonance happening. The concept of a celibate, all male priesthood is practically burned into them from birth.

Even so, many of them agree with me that this is a significant reason why the Catholic church has had so many terrible problems with clergy sexual abuse.

look in any particular pew in my church on a Sunday morning, and you'll find at least one former RCC (including me).

The idea of a female and or married clergy was a huge part of why I left the RCC for TEC.

Best of luck and happiness to Alberto and Ruhama. He's so cute and sexy I bet he could play himself in the Lifetime movie.

Father Alberto Cutié's leap of faith: New church, a plan to marry





BY JAWEED KALEEM
May 29, 2009

the clergy offspring. the pope makes me laugh. infallability? Gave themselves that in 1850. Made themselves God apparently. He is only bound by his conscience. Too bad he didn't leave when it was clear that he was going to lose this fight. I saw the films. He was a huge ass to do what he did in public the way he did. Honest to god. It was amazing. He was asking for it and he got it. celibacy needs to go. It is going to be the death of the church someday. We don't even have a full time priest around here. He only comes down once in a while on a schedule with three or four other places. The nuns who did all the work have retired. I don't know what is going to happen now.

onto their "stuff". . Even with all the fundy defectors.

Those property rules are pretty old - and go back to when the RCC had real and huge political power, and huge land holdings as well. Not allowing priests to marry (at least officially) meant all that stayed in church hands.

TEC's rules do say that church property is held in trust by the diocese and through them by the national church. So, yes, it will be difficult I think for the schismatics to get away with their own property grab. And I think the rules are in place for just such situations.

this rule.

From today's Miami Herald:


By DIANA MOSKOVITZ AND JAWEEED KALEEM
May 31, 2009

More from the Herald:


May 31, 2009


Alberto Cutié said Sunday that "church is about forgiveness" during his first sermon since leaving the Roman Catholic Church.






It, however, appears that there are more serious problems in play, that transcend blaming Cutié.



14 Catholic churches to close

BY JAWEED KALEEM
May 31, 2009







A bit more from the initial story above:

am I the only one to feel a little bit uneasy about this?

The man was content to break the vows he'd made. To me, there's a little bit of that caution that someone might feel getting involved with the guy who just dumped his wife for you... you know, when will he dump you the same way?

I'm glad there will be some time for soul searching before he's allowed to become an Episcopal priest.

Father Cutié was one of the few normal priests in his Church. He didn't date a married woman. He did not commit adultery, for adultery only applies when one or more partners are married.

But I still think the time to protest such things would be before taking ones ordination vows, you know?

It's like someone who's been married saying that monogamy is unnatural. Well, that's a perfectly fine position, but you really ought not to be married if you hold it.

It's not the relationship that troubles me; it's the consummating of it, I suppose.

I also think it's telling that he switched so quickly after he was caught; he seemingly had no conviction to switch prior to his being caught canoodling publicly.

he probably wasn't a dedicated professional just another wanna be priest

I didn't hear that, but I didn't follow the story all that closely. Perhaps he really wanted to make the switch, then. That's a little more understandable.

After the service, Bishop Leo Frade, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, said Cutié had approached the Episcopal church months before the magazine pictures were published. Cutié did so, Frade said, because the priest realized he had begun to think like an Episcopalian.

http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/1074580.html

One day during his undergraduate years, he went to one of the Jesuits and explained how his beliefs differed from official Catholic teaching. The Jesuit said, "Sounds like you're an Episcopalian at heart."

I've certainly known of RCC priests who have left the priesthood, or have been received into TEC, and then have married. But this all seems just a little too easy- I hope he's giving it a great deal of prayerful thought, that's all I'm saying.

it deserves a LOT of prayerful consideration to make a move like that.

and Cutie has lost his larger public platform with the loss of his popular Catholic TV show. Will he miss the fame?

Hey! Maybe he will become the first Episcopal televangelist!

I think it interesting that a celibate priest gives relationship advice, and that people listen.

but every weekend they get drunk

As if they can really understand, outside looking in.

although the process will probably be faster than for the average lay person.

I know this because members of my own parish who have been clergy in other denominations have gone through the process.

For the non-Episcopalians on this thread, discernment is a process required of all potential priests, meeting with a committee of lay people for a year, meeting with a diocesan committee for a year, and then going to seminary. It's an attempt to weed out anyone who might be problematic.

Disgusting the hateful comments that some people posted at the website, a far cry from Father Cutié homily on love.

He will be an asset to them.