Father Alberto Cutié slams the Catholic Church

Who is Father Alberto after the scandal?
The same man, with a family and the same religion. I profess the Catholic faith, and I'm still a priest. I joined a church that has the same Catholic traditions, but it's reformed. I'm Catholic, but not Roman. I didn't stop loving the Virgin, the Saints, I still celebrate mass, the eucharist and we even have the same Calendar of Rituals, the same Easter ... We have bishops, monsignors, priests and we celebrate the 7 sacraments.

Why did you wait to be caught by the paparazzi to be happy?
My first dilemma was to know how I could continue with my passion and devotion when I wanted to get married. I was in the middle of that process when I was surprised by those photos. I remember the day they were taken, but I didn't think they had something to do with me or a tabloid. I figured they were just taking pics of the view.

In your book you say you immediately called Emilio Estefan to tell him what had happened. Did you intend for him to stop the release of those pictures?
Being Cuban and working in Miami, the first thing that came to mind was that it was someone sent by Fidel Castro's government. I didn't know who it was, so I phoned Emilio. If it was a paparazzo, he would know, because he knows everyone. But when I described him, he told me it wasn't one of them. What we didn't realize is that the paparazzo was very smart and knew we would eventually recognize him, so he hired another person and his wife, two people that are not in their community.

Some time passed between the moment the pictures were taken and their publishing. Did you think you were off the hook?
I was called when the magazine was ready to go to press in Mexico, so I'm surprised the editors insist I already knew about them. They phoned me the night before the magazine hit the streets, so they were ready to sell it. The best thing would have been if they had notified me they had that material and I had that confirmed it was me in them. In fact, that night I told the journalist that called me - who had been one of my producers at one of my TV shows in Telemundo. She was very nervous, but I even explained to her that I was already thinking of converting to the Anglican church and getting married.

You used to defend the Roman Catholic Church a lot. Why did you decide to attack them?
I am not attacking the Church. In the book I speak of my internal dilemmas and my struggle with an institution that I loved and still love, but I realized they were not moving forward. The Church doesn't want to change or listen to anybody's opinion and then the fanatics come out and say I'm attacking them. To those same Latinos I don't hear them say that a rapist priest betrayed the Church, as they labeled my thing as a "huge scandal".

And wasn't it, a "huge scandal"?
It was about a single, adult woman, and a single, adult man. Where's the huge scandal? The Church has its own scandals without Father Alberto helping them. They said I stained their public image, but they don't need me for that. They have done that very well on their own. As a matter of fact, I helped fight those scandals. I replaced two priests accused of being pedophiles, denounced by many victims. I even replaced a priest who had a daughter with a prostitute, who was paid one hundred thousand dollars to keep quiet, and she still talked about it.

Who paid her that amount of money?
The Archdiocese, in a legal agreement. And I want you to know that I think these three priests I replaced are good people, but sadly they had some difficulties. There are so many men that due to celibacy lead such sad and even promiscuous lives. I analyze my own life and, in my 8 years of serving them I was celibate until I met my wife, and I have only been with her. I have been a monogamous man, and I pity those men that continue to be priests, even bishops, that have been involved in several relationships and broken their celibacy vows thousands of times. Until the truth comes out in public, it's not an issue or an scandal. There's hypocrisy right there.

I wouldn't have touched these topics if they had showed me a bit of sympathy. They could have said: 'The Father has failed us, but he has loved the Church for so many years, let's pray for him'. But no, they came out to crucify me. We have tapes of gay priests hanging out in gay bars right next to the Vatican, being promiscuous. Over one thousand priests have died in the United States of AIDS and that's not in the news. It's just terrible that Father Alberto has a 35-year-old girlfriend who he kissed at the beach. My case was the opportunity for the Church to educate the people, to say: 'We are human beings'.

Now that you are a father and a husband, how is your everyday life? Sharing a bed with a woman, after spending 40 years alone?
When you get married you have to adapt to many things. For example, knowing that the closet is hers (laughs). Her shoes take up plenty more space than mine. I keep leading a simple life, though. The beauty of marriage is that you share everything, and even through these hard times we went through, there's love, caring, kindness. To me there's nothing more beautiful than having my wife and my little girl in the crib, as well as our 16-year-old [from her previous relationship]. I leave mass as tired as I did back there [in the Roman Catholic Church], but then I finished and was all alone. Now I have a family waiting for me to have dinner, go to the movies. Being a good priest and a good family man are not incompatible things. In fact, I think I'm a better priest now.

Why do you feel you're a better priest now?
Because I feel so much closer to the people. It's not the same to baptize other people's children than my own, as I will this Sunday. It's not the same to hear someone else got up at 6 in the morning to change a diaper than doing it yourself. Hearing about economic problems in order to support a family and a home than having them too. I've always been close to them, but now I'm closer because I have my own family. The day of my wedding I felt like one of the Apostles because all of the people that Jesus called were married.

If the Roman Catholic Church abolished celibacy, would you go back?
If that was only the case, I'd say yes, but I didn't embrace the Episcopal Anglican Church just because of celibacy. In the book I speak of women in the Church, for example. How could I say no to my little girl if she wanted to become a priest, when God made us to His own image? In Judaism there are female Rabbis, there are female Pastors, female Supreme Court judges, doctors, lawyers, CEOs ... How could I tell my daughter that she doesn't stand a chance in her church because the only way is to become a nun or a mother? I find that absurd and they are some topics I struggled with for several years, because I was very conservative before.

With the scandal, there were other rumours, like your wife was a ruthless, cold woman or that you had gay sex with your assistants. What do you have to say about them?
There were so many made-up and false stories. They said all this happened because I was trying to cover up something else. What thing? The saddest part is that my supposed employee who claimed he had seen me having gay sex, wasn't even fired by me. He left on his own, and then he chose one of the biggest womanizers in Colombia to claim he was my gay lover. This man suffered a lot because he has a wife and children, and could not understand why this guy said those lies about us, since we both helped him in the past. These sick people took advantage of the situation to come up with several lies, and then so-called respectable journalists followed up on their non-sense, without any kind of proof. The only certain thing is that they caught a priest who claimed he was celibate with a woman on a beach.

How do you feel now about those journalists?
The journalist that hurt us the most came crying to us several months later and apologized, saying: 'I'm sorry! I know I hurt you a lot, but you know that for 200 dollars, those people will say anything'. That's how low they've come. The line between real journalism and tabloids is so blurry. Prestigious agencies like the Associated Press or EFE were repeating these false rumours about, say, "the ex boyfriend of Father Alberto's wife", when they weren't even a couple and much less they kissed! He was a tennant living next to my wife's house. The guy wanted to make a quick buck, and since the economy was bad, many persons wanted to take advantage of our situation.

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