Cutie problems

I live in Florida, just three hours from Miami, and I am a Cuban. Which means that I get periodic updates from relatives in Miami on all the latest scandals. And, the latest scandal is an incredibly juicy one. The Rev. Father Alberto Cutie, a Roman Catholic priest, is blue-eyed, handsome, and a national Spanish-language television host. He is an advice columnist and an author of more than one book. Even better, he is known as Padre Oprah. And, guess what? He was photographed in flagrante kissing a woman on the beach. And, uhm, not just any woman, a divorced woman with a child.

 Oh, but it gets even better. Just this past week, the Cutie priest jumped from the Roman Catholic Church to The Episcopal Church. And, he did so without even talking to his bishop. Now, I happen to know that, prior to this, relationships between the Roman Catholic bishops and The Episcopal bishops in Miami were really good. The Roman Catholic archbishop has admonished the Episcopal bishop over the way in which the transfer was handled. According to the Roman Catholic bishop, Fr. Cutie did not answer a letter which the bishop had sent him and The Episcopal Church bishop (The Rt. Rev. Leo Frade) had not contacted him to notify him of the upcoming transfer. This has set back relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and The Episcopal Church.

Frankly, it would be real easy to take some cheap shots at both the Roman Catholic Church and The Episcopal Church. In fact, the national news media has been doing just so. They have used this as an argument that clerical celibacy is a bad concept. It is very tempting for us Orthodox to take the same viewpoint. After all, we can be happy in our superiority that our clergy can marry. But, here is the problem. We Orthodox do believe in clerical celibacy. We do not believe in clerical celibacy for all, but we do believe in clerical celibacy. And, if we make the mistake of agreeing with the news media that the problem with the Roman Catholic Church is their insistence on clerical celibacy, we end up looking down upon our own celibate priests.

You see, behind the news media reports, there is the opinion that self-control in sexual matters is impossible. When we make the mistake of agreeing with the national news media that the Roman Catholic Church is ever so wrong, we end up implying that our celibate priests have no sex drive. But, that is not the Orthodox teaching. None of the Church Fathers have claimed that celibate priests are neuters. Rather, the claim has been that our priests have made a true sacrifice for the sake of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And, we have a problem of our own. We do not have sufficient celibate priests to provide sufficient candidates for the episcopacy. Part of the reason why we do not have enough celibate priests is that whatever we may preach as Orthodox, we tend to actually agree with the news media that a celibate priest is a neuter. It is no wonder that so extremely few of our young men decide to make the celibate decision. They feel the pull of their biology and decide that they could not be called to celibacy. That is simply bad theology.

So, what is good theology? Good theology is that there are those who are called by God to the celibate priesthood. They are not neuters. They are not incapable of sound solid human relationships. They are not immune from temptations. Rather, they are those who have a special calling from God to celibacy, and have chosen to answer that call. Now, I will agree that the Roman Catholic Church is deeply wrong to mandate celibacy. The problem with that position is that it looks down upon those priests who are married. And, the Roman Catholic Church does have married priests in some of their Byzantine Rite parishes. In fact, the Roman Catholic celibacy attitude all too often comes out of an attitude that sex is somehow wrong. But, when we Orthodox are too quick to jump on the bandwagon with the news media, we are often jumping on a bandwagon that sex is an uncontrollable part of human beings. And, that is simply wrong.

So, let us be careful to honor celibate priests. They are men who have made a clear and deliberate sacrifice for Our Lord Jesus Christ. And, let us be careful to honor married priests. They are men who have made a clear and deliberate decision to answer Our Lord Jesus Christ’s call to serve the People of God in an often thankless environment. Let us be careful to honor both our celibate and our married priests and to not speak with our friends in such a way that our celibate priests are somehow thought of as less than fully and totally men.