Write for God

Father Alberto Cutie

Update on 5/28/09: Father Cutie announces at a press conference that he has joined the Episcopal Church and will preach his first sermon on Sunday, 5/31/09. Archbishop John Favalora wasn’t notified before the news conference took place at Father Cutie’s new church.

Spanish-language TV viewers are familiar with Father Alberto Cutié, the  telegenic Catholic priest who has a big following in the Miami area and in other markets, including EWTN’s network in Latin America. Father Cutié (his name sounds like a description of his good looks, but it’s pronounced Koo-tee-’ay) has TV and radio programs where he discusses family issues, much like a better looking, more positive, church-based Dr. Phil.

Father Cutié always seemed to me a movie star playing a priest rather than a priest. Tall, dark and handsome, he charmed ladies more than men. My father, a former altar boy who still believes priests should inspire quiet respect, always found him too slick.

Father Cutie on the cover of a tabloid

Father Cutié was in the news recently because a Mexican tabloid published several compromising photos of him on the beach with an attractive woman. In their swimsuits, they smooch and grab in a way that wouldn’t remotely suggest they’re priest and parishioner. As we used to say in another time, they’re making out.

Archbishop John C. Favalora removed Father Cutié from his parish in the Miami area and relieved him of his duties. ”Father Cutié made a promise of celibacy, and all priests are expected to fulfill that promise with the help of God,” said the Archbishop this week.

Father Cutié will present his side of the story during the Early Show on Monday. Before the photos surfaced, he had told a reporter that he wanted to marry and have children. His Web site is bare, except for a bilingual apology.

The odd part of this very public fall from grace is the cavalier attitude of Father Cutié’s supporters, who protested in front of the church yesterday and are planning another rally today. It’s no big deal, as many seemed to be saying. One protester, a middle-aged male, told the Miami Herald,

”He has the right to fall in love and start a family. They’re treating him as a sinner.”

Duh, Mister Protester! We lay people have the right to fall in love and start a family because we have not entered holy orders. Father Cutié has the right to renounce his vows, fall in love and start a family without being considered a sinner.  There’s a difference.

When we marry, our vow is to honor and cherish our spouse; we’re sinners when we violate that vow by being unfaithful. The point is that we married people and religious people make promises in the presence of God and we are sinners when we don’t fulfill our end of that covenant.

How far have some Catholics fallen in moral relativism when they think it’s okay for a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, a holy representative of the lineage from Peter, to lock legs and smooch on the beach with a shapely woman? Whether the Church ever reconsiders the vows that religious people take is immaterial. Chastity is one of those vows now.

My husband couldn’t believe that a supporter of Father Cutié actually told a reporter that at least he hadn’t molested a child. Comments like that convince me that the Catholic Church needs the purification mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI and outlined in  Malachi 3:

But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. 

He will sit refining and purifying (silver), and he will purify the sons of Levi, Refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.

An Alberto Cutié who smooches on the beach with a young woman might elicit a “get a room” comment from those around him on their lounge chairs, but nothing else. A Father Alberto Cutié who does the same is living a lie that is a sin against God. As a lay person, he would still be an entertaining TV personality and an affable radio host. As a priest, he is a source of shame.

The president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, is a former priest who’s been hit with two paternity suits by the mothers of children he fathered while he was still a priest. Lugo left the priesthood for politics.

Please pray for Father Cutié so that he may discern his true vocation in life, whether it’s in the priesthood or in marriage. If he lives his end of the bargain in either one, he will be serving God along the same rocky path that all of us take when we live the Christian life as sinners striving for God’s love. Father Cutié will be forgiven by the Father, as are we all.

Marriage and parenthood are beautiful ways to serve Jesus, and so is the priesthood, but they are not the same. The issue is not whether a married man may be a good priest or how we feel about celibacy:  It’s about being true to our word, our vows and ourselves.  There’s no moral relativism in that.