Monday, January 03, 2011

Quote of the Day

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In a controversial book . . . Roman Catholic-turned-Episcopal priest Alberto Cutié lashes out against his former church, calling it "misogynistic," "disconnected" and an "institution that continues to promote old ideas."

. . . Secretly, Cutié writes [in Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love] he had come to doubt much of the church's teachings as early as 2003, after several run-ins with church hierarchy and after a growing disillusion with "bishops too concerned with their own images" during child sex-abuse crises.

In several passages, Cutié blames the church's celibacy policy for the dwindling clergy pool and the child sex-abuse scandals. He also accuses church leaders of being hypocrites and says they tacitly accept secret homosexual and heterosexual relationships among priests but disapproved of his because it became public.

"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.

The priest's critiques – he also expresses anger that many priests are too-quickly "abandoned to sink or swim" when accused of sexual crimes – are not unique. But rare is such a public airing of grievances against the archdiocese by a former insider.

– Jaweed Kaleem
"Priest Alberto Cutié Lashes Out Against His Former Church"
The Miami Herald
January 3, 2010



Recommended Off-site Link:
Padre Alberto Cutié Eyes Sins and Sensibility in New Book – Aída Bardales (New York Daily News, January 5, 2011).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
For Father Alberto Cutié, "Love Triumphs"
Weakland and Cutié: Making the Connections
Quote of the Day -- November 21, 2010
Let's Face It: The Catholic Church is a Gay Institution
A Fact That Should Neither Be Surprising Derogatory


2 comments:

Mareczku said...

A lot of what Father Cutie says is true and it does seem that the Church looks the other way when priests are in relationships but when a relationship becomes public the priest is subject to discipline. However, when it became public that Father Cutie was having a sexual relationship with a divorced woman, what were his superiors to do? They really couldn't tell him to do what he wanted. So maybe Father Cutie would have stayed a Catholic priest if he could have kept things secret. But when things came out he really jumped ship fast and didn't really show any remorse for breaking his vows.

JoanieD said...

It's a pity he couldn't have stayed in some capacity and worked for reform within the Roman Catholic Church. There are lots of grassroots Catholic communities emerging -- sometimes called intentional Eucharistic communities. I'm sure he would have been welcomed as a pastor in one or more of these communities.