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	Secret Sex Lives of Priests By Courtny Gerrish Today's TMJ4 May 14, 2011 http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/121818259.html [with video] The secret sex lives of Catholic priests. It's a story one former priest says the church is hiding. Father Alberto Cutie says many priests are having adult relationships, and it's happening in every Catholic community. Now, in a new book this former Catholic priest wants followers to know just how often celibacy rules are ignored. Father Cutie was caught on a Miami beach kissing his girlfriend. It stirred the media into a frenzy. "I think almost every man I know struggles with celibacy," he told us. Now Father Cutie is talking about things the Catholic Church doesn't want you to know. Bringing up the age old question, should priests still take a vow of celibacy? Father Cutie grew up in Miami, Florida. Early on he felt a calling to the priesthood. "I pretty much knew in my heart this is what God wanted me to do." He was ordained in 1995, but as early as seminary school there were red flags. In his new book "Dilemma" Father Cutie writes about the time he was called to the rector's office. "...he asked out of the blue 'Albert, do you like girls or boys?' 'Girls, father,' I answered." Cutie says he was shocked by the question. He also heard stories about the sexual conduct of priests and seminarians, both homosexual and heterosexual. Eventually Father Cutie started to question things. "What I didn't understand is how the church could say you know this is what we want everyone to do but so many people within the church are actually doing something very different." He also began to struggle with his own vow of celibacy. Then Father Cutie met a woman. "It was love at first sight," he explained. The connection was immediate and threw him into a tug of war between his love of the church and his love for a woman. "We actually didn't even greet each other, touch each other, even avoided looking at each other for years," Father Cutie told us. They eventually started dating and Father Cutie found himself living a double life. Then things fell apart. His relationship was exposed, and he was removed from the church. Now Father Cutie's writing about what he calls the church's "skewed" approach to sexual morality. "Sexuality is a gift from God. God made us sexual beings. Why continue to impose something that we know is not working for a great number of priests?" But as Cardinal Stritch University's Reverend Steven Kuhl points out celibacy is ingrained in the Catholic Church, "It is a very long standing tradition...the idea of having a celibate bishops, priests, deacons emerges is in the year 306, in Spain." But it wasn't imposed, in the west, until the Middle Ages mostly as a way for the Pope to keep control of church lands. It's a "rule" that's been tough to change. "It's not a doctrine, it's a discipline," Reverend Kuhl says, "and it's a discipline that's concerned with the dignity of the office." And the issue still divides people. We talked to folks at Serb Hall's Friday night fish fry. Some say change would be good. "I don't think you'd have as much trouble and what's going on in the Catholic Church." But Tracy Giese sees no reason to change the rules. "If you start changing rules you get society to where it is now where nobody has a foundation." But some, like Father Cutie, say the church needs to move into the 21st century. "Where in the Bible does it say that's what God wants?" Father Cutie is married now and has a young daughter. He's also an Episcopal Priest where he continues to practice his love for God and hopes his story brings about change in the Catholic Church. We did try to talk to the Milwaukee Archdiocese for this story, but they declined our request for an interview saying the archbishop was "not familiar Father Cutie's book."
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