Two quasi celebrities have pictures of them cavorting with women made very very public that starts the rumor mills that they’re cheating on their vows.
Uh-oh. So what do you do next?
So you’ve seen the images of one of the more famous Dad’s on television Jon from “Jon and Kate Plus 8” being seen hanging out with another woman. Well, just imagine that Jon went on national television this morning and started saying things like he’s in love with the other woman he was seen cavorting with. And by the way, he’s been cheating on his wife for two years. Oh and also, he thinks monogamy in a marriage is good but should be optional. And while saying he doesn’t want to be the “poster boy” for the Monogamy debate he felt he needed to speak out on national television.
So what would you think of him? Pretty slimy, right?
Well that’s exactly what Father Alberto Cutié is doing right now since getting caught cavorting with a woman on the beach.
Father Alberto Cutié sat down for his first television interview since the scandal began on The Early Show Monday. While he said many things which made him seem likeable and penitent I kept wondering what the heck is he doing on national television talking about this?
He says he doesn’t want to hurt the Church, well what does he think he’s doing by giving interviews?
Fr. Cutie says he’s mulling his next move, which he says could range from breaking up with her to marrying her. The woman, he indicated, wants to marry him.
Conceding he’s become “kind of a poster boy” for the debate over priests being celibate, Cutié said priestly celibacy is good, but should be optional.
On the Early Show, he said:
“”I don’t want to be the anti-celibacy priest. I think that’s unfortunate. I think it’s a debate that’s going on in our society, and now I’ve become kind of a poster boy for it. But I don’t want to be that. I believe that celibacy is good, and that it’s a good commitment to God. This is something I’ve struggled with. And something that I never expected to become a public debate.
… What many say is that maybe it should be optional. And that I do believe: I do believe that people should be given the option to marry or not to marry in order to serve God.”
OK. People who don’t want to be poster boy’s for a certain issue usually don’t go on the morning talk shows. Just a thought.
Meanwhile, at least Jon from Jon and Kate Plus 8 has gone underground and is simply at home taking care of his children and trying to get on with his life.
Now, we’ve got polls running throughout the media concerning the Catholic Church’s “outdated?” rules on celibacy. And now the story has even more attention.
Look. People sin. Nobody’s perfect. Fr. Cutie broke a vow. That’s pretty serious stuff. You don’t go on national television to talk about it. You go to Confession.
May 11, 2009 at 5:27 pm
“You don’t go on national television to talk about it. You go to Confession.”
What if we had Confession on national television? Now that would be a reality show worth watching. Since we’re so behind the times in everything else we can leapfrog on this one thing (parishioners made aware of filming afterwords who voluntarily wave the sacramental seal, something like Taxicab Confessions).
May 11, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Please correct me if I am wrong, but did he break a vow or a promise? Religious priests take a vow of chastity, but not diocesan priest. They promise chastity, don’t they?
Not that I agree that going on national television to not be the poster boy is the right thing to do . . . .
May 11, 2009 at 7:19 pm
“…people should be given the option to marry or not to marry in order to serve God.”
Um, Father, they DO have the option. You can choose to be a priest, or you choose to marry. You just can’t choose to do BOTH. Nobody has a “right” to the priesthood. Likewise, nobody has a “right” to marriage. I didn’t just walk up to a girl and say, “I have decided to get married. Get in the car, woman.” I discerned and courted and she accepted, and I chose to give myself to her and not to anyone else. A priest or religious also discerns and courts (seminary, or temporary vows) and he/she may be accepted, and they must decide to give themselves to the Church and nobody else. We all give up something. Why do horny priests think they are more deprived than the rest of us?
May 11, 2009 at 7:48 pm
“Religious priests take a vow of chastity, but not diocesan priest. They promise chastity, don’t they?”
They vow chastity. You might be thinking of poverty. Religious priests/brothers vow that, but not diocesan priests. They necessarily live a modest lifestyle, but they own their cars and pay their insurance, etc. They have stuff that belongs to them.
May 11, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Helene, for all practical purposes does it really make a difference if it’s a vow or a promise? A diocesan priest makes promises of chastity and obedience to an ordinary, but not vows. Should promises have a lesser weight than vows?
If I promise to care for my children, but don’t take a vow, am I off the hook if I neglect my kids? “Well, it wasn’t a vow!”
May 11, 2009 at 11:32 pm
We need an Opus Dei hit squad to take this jerk out.
Saul Menowitz.
May 12, 2009 at 12:27 am
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May 12, 2009 at 12:32 am
Father did not break a promise or a vow. Father is incardinated in the Archdiocese of Miami, and so made no public vows whatsoever. As a secular cleric, he promised obedience and celibacy to his Ordinary. Cavorting with women does not explicitly break either of those promises, unless he has actually attempted marriage with one of them.
Religious make a vow of chastity, by which they merit special graces for doing what they are already bound to do: be chaste. Seculars only promise celibacy, by which they are bound not to do something they otherwise could: attempt marriage.
Moreover, there most certainly is a difference between a promise and a vow, the first and most important being that vows may be made only to God, but promises to anybody, and the second being the consequentially tremendous difference in the gravity of the sin concerned in breaking each of them. Breaking a vow is always grave matter, whereas breaking a promise admits of slight matter depending on the object and matter of the promise.
Father is guilty of grave crimes against chastity and religion, and has caused damnable scandal. But he has broken neither vows (because he made none, at least no public ones) nor promises (because what he did isn’t contrary to what he promised).
“Look. People sin. Nobody’s perfect. Fr. Cutie broke a vow.”
Astounding…
~cmpt
May 12, 2009 at 12:39 am
FYI only. Chastity is for every Christian – married or celibate. It consists of not sinning against the 6th & 9th commandment. Celibacy is an evangelical counsel; it is not mandatory for all the followers of Jesus. But it has been made mandatory for priests in the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite and for those who vow to live that way.
May 12, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Okay, for the sake of being legalistic, let’s say Fr. Cutie-pie broke no vow, which I don’t believe, can we all agree he broke a commandment?
Hello!!
May 12, 2009 at 3:31 pm
cmpt,
From what I understand, diocesan priests promise celibate chastity. Not just celibacy nor just chastity.
Your legalistic evaluation of things, saying it’s not a breaking of a promise because he didn’t try to get married, is splitting hairs. You seem to be trying to reduce the gravity of his actions, excusing them in part.
“Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.Matthew 5:33-37.
Status as “promise” or “vow” doesn’t really matter unless one is being legalistic. Yes means yes, no means no. Otherwise, we’re being like the ancestors Jesus spoke of…if it wasn’t a vow, there was a lesser obligation (or none at all) to fulfill a promise.
May 12, 2009 at 3:40 pm
When the “solution” of marriage for priests is proposed in these situations, I wonder how one can believe it will solve the problem of men who chose not to be faithful. Would we not then have priests who are unfaithful to their wives, or priests who don’t choose marriage but are involved in unchaste relationships? Will priests be granted annulments to marry a second time, etc.? I would also be scandalized to see a married priest fondling his wife on the beach. Marriage certainly hasn’t eliminated unchaste behavior in the laity. Just my thoughts.
May 12, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Matthew S. – I love your quote from MT. I had the same thought but was too lazy to look it up.
I also think Daddio’s comment summarizes the situation well.
May 12, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Matthew S.,
From what I understand, diocesan priests promise celibate chastity. Not just celibacy nor just chastity.
Then you do not understand. Diocesan Priests make a simple promise of celibacy and obedience to their Ordinary and his Successors. The former promise is made at their diaconate ordination only and the latter is made at both ordinations. Nothing is ever mentioned of chastity in the promise of celibacy in the diaconate ordination, or else it would be profitable also for married permanent deacons to make it, which they do not. The text of the promise:
Bishop: Therefore, I ask you:
In the presence of God and the Church, are you resolved, as a sign of you interior dedication to Christ, to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom and in lifelong service to God and mankind.
Candidate: I am.
You notice nothing in there about chastity. Of course, all Catholics are already bound to perfect chastity by virtue of Baptism, and so the promise is not necessary in that sense.
You seem to be trying to reduce the gravity of his actions, excusing them in part.
I am excusing nothing; I am merely making a distinction between that of which he is actually guilty and what you falsely accuse him of doing. Saying that I am excusing him by making this distinction is analogous to saying that I would excuse a murderer by asserting that he is not also guilty of theft. I am merely saying he didn’t do this one thing of which you accuse him.
Status as “promise” or “vow” doesn’t really matter unless one is being legalistic.
This is simply not correct. Why have vows if they are not more binding than promises? Why do we give to them a name different than other promises if the obligation is equivalent? You see then that your assertion does not even stand up to an analysis of the pertinent language, let alone theological inquiry. From the Catholic Encylopaedia:
A vow is defined as a promise made to God. The promise is binding, and so differs from a simple resolution which is a present purpose to do or omit certain things in the future… Unlike the simple breach of a promise made to a man, a failure to give to God what has been promised Him is a matter of importance, a very serious offence.
A vow is a promise made to God; therefore it is not simply like any other promise. It imposes a far greater obligation than a simple promise. This is not to say that the promise of celibacy to one’s Ordinary is not a serious promise of great consequence. I am simply saying it is less than a vow, which by virtue of its infinite Object always imposes a greater obligation than any other promise possibly could. So yes, strictly speaking, there is a lesser obligation, but still a grave one.
However, all of this is irrelavent to the matter of Father Cutié because as I’ve already made clear, he made neither a promise nor a vow of chastity. His tremendous obligation to chastity is found not in promises or vows, but in the Divine law which applies to all the Baptized and which is particularly imposed upon Priests by virtue of their special office and dignity. Therefore, as I already said, Father is guilty not only of crimes against chastity, but also against religion on account his office, and again also of great scandal because he is a Priest and not simply a layman.
I am always a little cautious when people start throwing around the word “legalistic.” Christ’s admonition from Matt v:37 to let one’s yes mean yes and no mean no is not an admonition against careful analysis, but against duplicitousness, by which a man attempts to obfuscate his perfidy in the cloud of confusion caused by his imprecise words. It is actually the opposite of what I am doing. I believe Christ is here asking us to be more precise in our language and not less.
At any rate, when people start using the word “legalistic” in an attempt to defend their faulty reasoning, what I usually hear is, “Yes, you are actually right, but I wish to make a special exception for this case, and so will now say that your universal application of the universal law to this particular case is not justified, contrary to the actual meaning of universal.” In other words, “legalistic” is simply a catchword for intellectual laziness and moral laxity. The actual meaning of the word is a semantic abyss: it doesn’t really mean anything.
~cmpt
May 14, 2009 at 1:33 am
http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html#6798700754288751077
That link to a little video of another Fr. Cutie who did the right thing.
May 15, 2009 at 5:05 am
cmpt,
Thanks for the long response. Let me ask you this:
Does a priest’s promise of celibacy include the basic understanding that celibacy doesn’t merely mean “will not marry”, but includes the implication “and therefore will not enjoy sexual congress of any type”? In other words, the priest, at the time of making such a promise, knows that the promise is not just to not marry, but that by not marrying, he will be foregoing all sexual contact.
Yes, we men make distinctions between promises and vows. I don’t think God does, based on my understanding of the previously quoted passage from Matthew 5. (Which, by the way, I don’t see how you read “be precise in what you say” into…I see it as more of “mean what you say, always, not only when you make a vow”.) I agree that Fr. Cutie did not break a vow, since he didn’t take a vow. He did make a promise, and violated the terms of all that the promise entails. He knew when he made that promise that he was not only not going to get married, but that he was not going to be able to enjoy the fruits of marriage.
Adhering to one definition of “celibacy”, specifically abstention from marriage, and focusing only on that, is your legalism. You’re ignoring the fullness of what the promise really means.