By Joseph Wardy
NJ.com
June 1, 2009
http://blog.nj.com/njv_joseph_wardy/2009/06/father_alberto_cutie_scandal_t.html
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| The Rev. Alberto Cutie and his girlfriend Ruhama Buni Canellis. The popular Miami priest nicknamed "Father Oprah" became an Episcopal amid an uproar over published photos of him kissing his girlfriend on the beach. |
Wake up, Catholic Church. You are hundreds of years behind the times.
The world has changed and then some but in the 45 years since I graduated from Catholic high school nothing much has changed except a different Pope-- all of whom are laughably infallible. The Pontiff is really a Zen practitioner in that he (we know it's always a he) is already perfect.
If the Catholic Church were a profit-run organization, it would replace AIG as the leading organization qualifying for bailout money. Yet, it is a most wealthy conglomerate with enough money in its paintings alone to feed all the hungry in the world.
Why am I stating that the Catholic Church is run poorly? Imagine for a moment an employer who steadfastly refuses to hire half of the available and qualified in the labor market. Women can be nuns but there are none anymore because the rules for women in the clergy are so much more stringent than for men. If God turns out to be a female, then all the Popes are serving time in purgatory.
In the most recent but not shocking news, Father Alberto Cutie of Miami fell in love with a woman (God forbid ) and decided to leave the Church for the more friendlier confines of the Episcopalian tradition. So, priests can't marry or have children despite being called Father? So, why would a troubled married couple seek the advice of someone who has no experience with the challenges of marriage and raising children?
So, women are not allowed to be priests and priests can't marry but some have been getting away with being a POP...priests of pedophilia. Catholics who dismiss this ugly reality are doing no different than the bishops who allowed this behavior to occur. The leading culprit of concealing pedophilia is the infamous Cardinal Bernard Law formerly of Boston. And Law's punishment is a plush lifestyle in Rome.
The Catholic Church will not perish. Within the Church worldwide, there are devoted people practicing their faith with a belief system that does not question or inquire. There are factions in the clergy, like the Franciscans and the Jesuits, who are functioning as spiritual role models for the rest of the world to emulate.
But the Church's lack of progressiveness has produced what I see as two negatives: 1) The Cafeteria Catholics who realize that raising doubt is not acceptable and simply pick and choose what Church teaching to practice and 2) Recovering Catholics- these are former Catholics like Alberto Cutie who are now Episcopalians.
With an incredible shortage of priests to guide and lead its parishes, why not allow women in the priesthood and men to marry? If the Church's laws are not changed, we are witness to organized religion's version of the "old boy network."
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