Priest Who Left Catholic Church Finds Love In Family Life

First Posted: 01/ 4/11 07:35 PM Updated: 01/ 4/11 07:35 PM

By Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service

(RNS) The Rev. Albert Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a Catholic priest while church officials looked the other way: priests who got caught with prostitutes, priests who lived with their gay partners, and men of the cloth who kept one bed in the rectory and another with their mistress.

"In the Roman Catholic Church, a scandal is not really a scandal until it becomes public," Cutie writes in his new book, Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love, which hits stores Tuesday (Jan. 4).

Yet when he was caught by paparazzi canoodling with his girlfriend on a Miami beach in 2009, Cutie was booted from his rectory, dropped from his insurance plan and told he would no longer receive a paycheck.

The global television ministry that had earned him the nickname "Father Oprah" and legions of fans across Miami and Latin America, was over, he was told.

Within weeks, the priest whose made-for-Hollywood good looks provided endless tabloid fodder left to become an Episcopal priest. He later married his girlfriend, Ruhama Buni Canellis, and on Dec. 2, the couple announced the birth of their first daughter, Camila Victoria.

As Cutie describes it in his book, his move to the Episcopal Church was not as quick and convenient as it appeared. In fact, he says his dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church had stewed for several years.

The scandal only intensified his disillusionment with a church he now describes as "incompetent," "inhumane," "merciless" and an "ideological dictatorship."

"The church doesn't need my help to tarnish its image," Cutie said in an interview from his new office at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection near Miami. "The institution has done plenty to tarnish its own image."

The book contains few saucy details about the relationship that blossomed from friendship to romance over nearly a decade. Cutie writes that he was instantly attracted to the shy single mother and was grateful when he was transferred to another parish so he could focus on work.

But as Cutie wrestled with the loneliness and high expectations of the priesthood, he found himself stealing dates with Canellis at quiet restaurants or movie theaters where they would not be seen.

"My life was all about work, but there was something in my life that was missing, a big empty hole: intimacy," he said. "And I would ask whether (celibacy) was really God's rule and what God wants or a man-made rule and what the church wants."

The harsh treatment of priests who were ousted during the clergy abuse scandal that erupted in 2002 only fueled Cutie's disillusionment, and he knew that mandatory celibacy was part of the problem.

"This is one of the real scandals nobody wants to see in the church: good people, mostly good men, who are so lonely on the inside that they are often driven to satisfy basic human emotional and physical needs in all the wrong ways," he writes.

He also struggled with church teaching against homosexuality, divorce, women's ordination and denying Communion to non-Catholics. The priestly fraternity he was promised, he said, was actually a club of lonely ladder-climbers.

While Cutie protects the names of many in the church, he directs his harshest criticism at retired Archbishop John Favalora, who he describes as cold, rigid, arrogant, aloof and "disconnected and uninterested in my life."

"The spiritual fatherhood of a bishop ... was something I experienced through other bishops, but not from you personally," Cutie wrote in a lengthy letter that he never sent to Favalora.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Miami declined to comment about Cutie's book, and referred to a 2009 statement in which Favalora likened Cutie to the Gospel parable of the prodigal son who eventually "came to his senses."

Cutie, 41, actually began talks with the local Episcopal bishop years before the paparazzi pictures forced him out of the church, and said his transition was neither "easy nor quick."

"Yet the more I prayed and thought about the message of Jesus, the more I realized that his is a message of inclusion, not exclusion; a message of love, not rejection; a message of salvation, not condemnation," he writes.

Cutie readily admits that he broke his vow of celibacy, and still wrestles with the disappointment some former parishioners may feel. He says he didn't write the book to settle scores, but out of "deep-rooted disappointment" in an institution that he once believed held all the answers.

"I don't think it's anger," he said. "I think its disappointment, and sadness for the people who believe in an institution that isn't what it proclaims to be."

His new Episcopal flock in Biscayne Park has grown from 28 to about 300 and he's finding his footing in marriage, fatherhood and 3 a.m. feedings for his young daughter.

Marriage, he writes, has made him a better priest because "I feel more connected to humanity," and an infant daughter and teenage stepson have added a new understanding of the term "Father."

"I'm so blessed to be able to experience the gift of fathering a child, knowing that I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to be part of that experience," he said. "To be able to experience it, for me, is a double blessing."

From: HUFFINGTON POST

The Catholic Celibacy in crisis

Another Catholic priest and media figure has become the latest victim of the "celibacy crisis" in the Catholic Church. Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, former president of Human Life International, left that post abruptly in August without public explanation. He recently broke his silence and admitted that he left for "violating the boundaries of chastity with an adult female" who was under his spiritual care. He apologized profusely to everyone concerned.

At one level: Yawn! There is nothing new about this basic story line. Literally, tens of thousands of Catholic priests have left the priesthood to marry since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Granted, Fr. Euteneuer's story has a special "twist" because he was a leader in the anti-abortion movement. One might expect him to have the added motivation of not wanting to father an unwanted pregnancy. But the basic story -- priest breaks vow of celibacy -- is nothing new.

As the host of Interfaith Voices, a public radio show heard on 76 stations nationwide, this recalled my recent interview with the now-famous Father Alberto Cutie. It airs this week. [http://interfaithradio.org/node/1598] He was a Roman Catholic priest well known as a radio/TV host, broadcasting in both Spanish and English across North and South America. His career ended when paparazzi photographed him on a beach near Miami with Ruhama, the woman he loved. Privately, he had long struggled with his vow of celibacy. After the beach photos became public, he married Ruhama and became an Episcopal priest. He told his story in a new book: Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love.

In the course of the interview, he laid bare an open secret of the Catholic Church: a large percentage of Catholic priests, gay and straight, live as if celibacy were optional. Some have male partners; others have secret women friends and -- quite commonly in Africa and Latin America -- they have children. He noted that sometimes bishops even pay for the children to have a Catholic education. All this is tolerated if it does not become public and cause scandal.

Most likely, a good majority of Catholic priests keep their vow of celibacy, but there is no way to know for sure.

Cutie was careful to say that he did not have anything against celibacy, pointing to the tradition of religious life in both the Catholic and Episcopal churches. The problem, as he sees it -- and most Catholics see it -- is imposing celibacy where it is not integral to the vocation. A monk or nun chooses celibacy as part of their calling; a diocesan priest does not need celibacy to fulfill his calling. In fact, a priest who is a husband and a father (or someday: wife and mother!) might have decided advantages in understanding parishioners' problems.

For years, reform groups in the Catholic Church like CORPUS: the National Association for a Married Priesthood, and Call to Action have called upon the hierarchy to make celibacy optional for diocesan priests.

The case for change is compelling.

First of all, in a church that values tradition, optional celibacy is the tradition! For the first 12 centuries of Christianity, Catholic priests did, in fact, marry. Even today, Catholic priests of the Eastern rites can marry, and Episcopal and Lutheran priests who seek to transfer to the Catholic Church are welcomed with their wives and children.

Second, there is a severe and growing priest shortage. Bishops have dealt with it up to now by merging and closing parishes, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth among parishioners. Or they have imported clergy from other cultures. Despite good intentions, many of these priests have simply not embedded themselves in American culture and problems abound.

Finally, polls have shown for decades that the vast majority of Catholics favor letting priests have the option to marry. Catholics in the pews have been very accepting of married deacons for decades now; there is no reason to think that acceptance would not extend to married priests.

And, it's important to note: priestly celibacy is not dogma. It is simply a disciplinary practice, and could be changed literally with a flick of the papal pen.

So, why wait? I know the powers-that-be in the Vatican are comfortable with current arrangements, but it would seem that the needs of ministry and the availability of the Eucharist [only priests can consecrate the Eucharist in the Catholic tradition] should trump everything else.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what's taking them so long.

From: HUFFINGTON POST