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	Public, Clergy Divided on Padre Alberto Cutie's Fall from Grace By Rob Kuznia Hispanic Business May 6, 2009 http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/editors_picks/2009/5/6/public_clergy_divided_on_padre_alberto.htm A day after photos caught popular Miami priest and media personality Alberto Cutie in a celibacy-busting affair and cost him his job, the public and clergy appear divided over whether the punishment fits the crime, the Miami Herald reports. Unlike the clergy, the public generally seems to be coming to the defense of the 40-year-old Father Cutie, whose career went sour Tuesday after photos published in a Mexican celebrity magazine allegedly captured him having a romantic interlude with a woman on the beach. The Cuban-American priest was stripped of his duties as the head of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Miami Beach, and as president of Radio Paz and Radio Peace, Catholic 24-hour radio stations run by the diocese, according to the Sun Sentinel. On Tuesday afternoon, Radio Paz allowed listeners to comment on the flap. Most of them were supportive, the Herald reported. They also came to his defense in other shows. "If I were a young woman, I would go to church every day just to look at him," an elderly woman told WWFE La Ponderosa Host Eddie Calderon. Also sticking up for Cutie were some readers of HispanicBusiness.com. "There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits any man from loving a woman, even if that man is a preacher of the word of God," wrote one. "Celibacy is one of the most cruel and stupid rules of the Catholic Church." But a church official expressed a less forgiving opinion. "A commitment is a commitment,'' the Rev. James Murphy, pastor at Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic Church in Miami Lakes, told the Herald. "To me, it's similar to a vow a person takes in marriage to be faithful to one person. A priest takes a commitment to be faithful to the church." The photos ran in TVnotas, which featured the priest in blue shorts, lying on his back next to a woman in a bathing suit on Miami Beach. One of the roughly two dozen images -- which were taken over a three-day period -- shows him kissing the woman, and another shows him sticking a hand inside the woman's bathing suit, the Miami Herald reported. The Herald reports that the paparazzi for six weeks had been trying to sell the photos at a six-figure price.
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