For years, Father Alberto Cutié was one of the Catholic Church's most media savvy priests. His stints hosting and guesting on television and radio shows and doling out relationship advice in books and newspaper columns earned him the nickname "Father Oprah." Though, the media and his burgeoning celebrity became his ultimate undoing when pictures of him cavorting with a bikini clad lady appeared in a Spanish-language tabloid. Now, he's honing his media savvy on his former church in his no-holds-barred book, Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love.
The Miami Herald caught a sneak peek. In the book, Cutié slams the Church as misogynistic, hypocritical on homosexuality, and an "institution that continues to promote old ideas."
"There are so many homosexuals, both active and celibate, at all levels of clergy and Church hierarchy that the church would never be able to function if they were really to exclude all of them from ministry,'' Cutié writes.
Cutié eventually married that bikini-clad lady, now Ruhama Cutié; joined the Episcopal Church (an institution that allows homosexual priests); and recently welcomed his first child.
Unsurprisingly, he's critical on the Church's celibacy policy and blames it partially for the string of sex abuse scandals that have plagues the church.
He also take direct aim at former Miami Archbishop John Favalora "an aloof CEO'' with a "cold and rigid approach."
In other words, Cutié pulls few punches and this rare outpouring of grievances by a former priest should cause controversy.
Though, Cutié claims in the book he began to question much of the church's policy and teaching in 2003, it took years and a sex scandal (that, lets be honest, really shouldn't be classified as a sex scandal) to speak out. We wonder how many other priests in the Church secretly disagree with its policy? They certainly wouldn't be the only Catholics to doubt some of their Church's most controversial teachings.
[Herald: In new book, Cutié sharply critical of his old church]
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