Let’s chuck that Hayden-Katrina sex vids brouhaha in the garbage can where it belongs!
Here is a more “decent” media sex scandal. After seeing the news on CNN, my mother became keenly interested in the ongoing “scandal” involving media personality and Roman Catholic priest Father Alberto Cutie in Miami. The priest who has a high media profile among Florida’s Latinos, was recently caught by paparazzi smooching and fondling a woman on the beach. His bishop obviously had to do something canonically to contain the scandal. He sacked Cutie from being cura parroco and banned him from saying Mass. I have seen some of Fr Cutie’s shows while I was living in the US and the tag “Father Oprah” was not lost on me.
My mother’s being truly Pinay first comment was how “gwapo” this Father was. To which I remarked that here in the Pilipins, we have had many gwapo priests who had been caught in even more scandalous circumstances and still you can receive communion from them or even confess your most intimate sins! One or two of them even are bishops and only then did the Vatican do something about it when one woman went on TV cams with her lovechild with a certain bishop. Now this bishop was considered for the Cardinal’s seat in Manila.
Since Cutie’s congregation are Latins, and just like us Pinoys who are Latins too, I could connect with the relief expressed by the Latinos saying “that at least Fr Cutie was 1) straight and 2) had an affair with a woman who was definitely way way above the age of majority (the paramour was a devastatingly beautiful woman 35 years young).
The US church (not only the Catholic but many of the mainline Protestants) have been reeling from pedophile, rapist and gay clerics. Surely a celibate priest like Cutie who has the consensual hots for a woman isn’t that bad? That’s exactly what the Latinos thought and his congregation was willing to forgive and wrote their bishop. But Cutie had made up his mind.
Cutie has decided to join the Episcopal Church (TEC). TEC allows married priests, woman priests, birth control etc and almost everything that can cause a guilt trip among Catholics. This is why Robin Williams famously quipped that his denomination is “Catholic-lite, same rituals with half the guilt!”
The Episcopal bishop of Southeast Florida said on the CNN interview that Cutie would be dumb if he did not acknowledge the affair. The woman is very attractive.
Now whole Cutie issue has once more fanned the debate among Catholics about priestly celibacy (like the female priests issue, no amount of Papal statements can douse it) . A majority of US Catholics want their priests to marry. Increasingly Pinoy Catholics believe too that priests should marry if they want to. Among Pinoys, a married priest is more “believable” when counseling about marital existence (or surviving within marriage!).
The pros and cons of celibacy can be googled and you will get a heap of links. But we have to get the facts straight. Celibacy is only obligatory for the Latin Church. Among Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox they follow the ancient tradition of having married parish priests. Even in the Latin Church, the Pope can give dispensation to accept a married man as a priest. The Pope has done this for decades when a Protestant or Anglican cleric joins the Catholic Church as a cleric. The rule on celibacy is a church discipline and not dogma. The Pope or an Ecumenical Council with the Pope can change the rule.
While those for a married clergy recognize the benefits of having married priests, they don’t discount the benefits of having a celibate clergy. The question is whether all men can be called to priesthood and celibacy or priesthood and celibacy are two callings instead of one. Eastern Catholics tend to understand these are two callings.
The statistics are grim. As the number of Catholics increase, vocations to the priesthood decrease although in some areas, vocations do increase but this is unlikely to be sustained. Pope Benedict XVI has almost thrown in the towel by opting for a smaller by more conservative church.
Vatican II seems to have noted the problem when it restored the married diaconate to the Church. Married men may be ordained deacons and are cleric. But deacons are not priests but are ordained for service not to celebrate Mass or hear confessions.
Since my family is a multi-religious one (we have Episcopalians, Aglipayans, Baptists, Catholics (lay, priests, nuns and manangs), an Orthodox Bishop, some Muslims, UCCP churchgoers, Sabadistas, Presbyterians, Iglesia ni Cristo etc) religion is never discussed during parties and family gatherings. However this “Father Oprah” topic was an exception. The reason? My mom and gay protestant cousin brought it up during a recent despidida party!
My mom and cousin fell for Fr Cutie’s looks. And that started the funny discourse. All agreed and even the manangs had to that priests should get married. The manangs are privy to the lives of their parish priests so they should know.
The only pari in the party (who obviously said the prayers) took the neutral stance (after all his bishop is a known conservative) saying that the celibate life has its difficulties but if he did have an affair, the only honest thing is quit the priesthood and marry the woman. He says that the Vatican is unlikely to change the rules not under this Pope who is digging up the old rules! I asked Fr Manny and he said that for practical purposes, priests should be married.
About this married clergy bit. I told everyone about this flatmate in Oz when we were doing a PhD. He got his doctorate, worked for a year as a scientist and entered a Protestent theological seminary. He is now a Pastor with a wife and two kids doing ministry in Mindanao. On a recent visit to Manila, he told me that with the recession, clergy salaries and benefits are no longer enough to support a family. And this even from a Protestant church that gets subsidy from its mother American church! So he wished he were single and celibate!
Celibate? I asked…??? Why not single and not celibate? Answered the Pastor: Eh bawal sa Bibliya ‘yon!
Well at least he knows his Bible!
Well this priestly celibacy issue is linked with the marriage one. The celibacy one can’t be viewed without the marriage one. With marriages flopping and clerical vocations failing, Church leaders and laypeople should take a more serious look.
So we all changed topics that day and moved on to politics and Mar Roxas!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Celibacy for Priest in the Catlolic Church is what they require
to be a Priest. The Apostle, Peter was married. He was claimed to
be the first Pope. If the Apostle Peter can marry. Why can’t any
Catholic Priest? Priest are people with true emotions and feelings
also.
Pastors in the Protestant Churches are married. Being married
helps in their ministries. The wife helps in the ministries
of their congregation.
What I find very interesting here is that Father Cutie was open enough to acknowledge the affair. His bishop didn’t even do a cover up and instituted the canonical sanctions. Cutie decided to join the Episcopalians but they didn’t immediately accept the Catholic priest in their priesthood. They will have to examine him for a year according to their canons.
The public while thrilled with the illicit love angle, didn’t find this a real scandal as Cutie was open, the bishop did the right thing and the Episcopalians are doing the right thing.
In the Philippines priests with lovers are advised to pay up and their superiors keen to avoid scandal, will advise a hush up and cover up. The errant lover boy priest would be sent somewhere else, if he is promising, to further studies in Rome. If that woman did not appear in TV with her child, her lover-bishop would still be sitting in the cathedra of one of the Philippines’ richest dioceses and on the way to occupy our primatial see. The CBCP knew but didn’t do anything until the media got wind of it. The bishop as far as ecclesiatical chismis goes is believed to be in Rome working in a library!
not only that, but he said, “i accept it”, and just left the RC. thats very cool.
Do you know what’s going on behind closed doors in monasteries/nunneries/cathedrals/etc., etc?
Priest/Nuns do it all the time.
Catholic priests do li’l boyz all the time.
And, if any of you say otherwise, you are a bunch of hypocrites!
Join the Piskies my dear!
Dude, ang haba! Just by reading a couple of sentences from your first paragraph I know where you are taking us for the ride …
Whatabout Ratzinger’s knowledge his trainor priest molesting fellow priests in the holy house of the Vatican while he was a protector of “i forgot” during the reign of terror by Pope John Paul ii.
Have you ever heard of this Blackshama? Or, you did not read of it because you only read Balita, Manila Bulletin, Philippine JOurnal?
It was in AbCnews.com … It was there several days …
The molested priest resigned because Ratzinger didn’t lift a finger from their ass …HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!
And all this molested priest got was an apology and the molestor priests are the one who put asses-to-asses-dust-to-dust in Vatican … NAKADIRI NAMAN!!!!
ha1ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!ha!
I read the Times of London dumkoft!
Actually, Rinato, you have it all wrong. Blackshama, the UP-Diliman porpessor does not read Pinas lews. The esteemed professor prefers read the more sop-fitikeyted Times of London, New York Times, SeattlePi with Sydney Herald his favorite.
Blackshama, see? The church is corrupt. Filipinos beleive in the church. So, therefore, without much ado … EVERYONE IS CORRUPT!!!!
No matter who runss the philippines … Philipines willl end up the way it was before …
GOOD FOR MY FOREX …
MAGKANO NA BA ANG FOREX?????
ha!ha!ha!ha!ha1
You forget that the American church is also corrupt and so the Irish church also and the pro-abortionist dispensation you have in Washington DC
Most of the Churches are corrupt. Because, they are managed by
people like us. They are subject to temptations: money, sex,
positions, etc…If Churches are corrupt. Then, they are corrupt.
What we believer are looking is: the Good Teachings. WE DONT
CARE OF THE MESSENGERS, WE CARE FOR THE MESSAGES.
Well at least its a woman this time. Not a kid… Well that’s why I’m agnostic..
if u can, help others. if u cannot help, at least refrain from adding to the misery of others.
two things i don’t get:
1. why do priests have to be celibate? chaste, i get. but celibate? i think a priest can be virtuous, be loyal, have and love one wife and still serve the Church well. can’t he? as long as he doesn’t play around with women and most especially children, i guess i’m ok with that.
then again, maybe it’d be a problem if they had families to take care of, so their time and efforts would be divided between that family and their flock. it just seems unfair to me.
2. of all the topics to shift to, why mar roxas? i don’t get it.
Well I got something to tell all of you.., your all wrong!! in the first place, let me ask you a question, if ever these holy figures (jesus, bhudda, krishna etc..) did really exist, did even one of them tell people to make a religion in their names?? the religion Jewish, Christianity is a fraud, it is based upon astrological events (too long to explain, watch “ZEITGEIST” documentary on “WWW.SPRWORD.COM” and you balance it out yourself if you believe in it.) personified by thousands of years of imaginative thinking and was & is used by political agendas led by the Illuminati since ancient times.. The Illuminati, this group who calls themselves the enlightened ones, had gained positions of power through control of the banking system, Billions of people on planet earth are living in ignorance. Before your very eyes, politicians are advancing a global plan. Since the time of Napoleon, secret societies have been influencing politicians to take over and conquer Europe. Now, in the 21st century, their work of ages is coming to fruition. The New World Order is about the centralization of power. It’s about silencing any public criticism of the system. It’s about commercializing and selling everything as a product. It’s about letting China torture students and still allowing them to host the Olympics. It’s about closing down government owned schools and hospitals, turning them into apartments, and then letting private companies make profits from teaching your children or selling you drugs, just a bunch of masons of the highest degree who are devil worshipers and crazed for death, world domination and control. I’m not saying theres no God I’m a very spiritual man and I believe God is everywhere in nature just if all of us could see and hear him as I do,, but that would be hard in noisy and polluted cities, but that’s just me. I just don’t want to worship and kneel to a Jesus God or whatever, who has all the power in the world to do anything and creates a heaven where all the good people who follow him go to when they die but creates a hell! for those who disobey him where they will burn, suffer, be mutilated and rot for all eternity!!? but he loves you?? what a joke!! So there’s this God Christianities God who’s all powerful but somehow he can’t handle money,, and by Gods name he needs a lot of it!! hahaha.., forgive me people for laughing but if all that money of the church really did go to the poor the word “poor” will be no more. It’s not about money anymore people, control is what they want and they have done a pretty good job doing so in the past century, think about it, truth shall set you free as it has done for me.., ….
Wow, they should let priest have families. This would give them better authority over family planing policies at the same time Bankrupt them.