The popular (and recently scandalized) priest has crossed the Tiber — in the other direction:

Father Alberto Cutie, a priest and television host who was well-known in the Miami area, has left the Catholic Church and joined the Episcopal Church. The priest’s change comes after he was photographed kissing a woman on a beach earlier this month.

Fr. Cutie was received into the Episcopal Church today at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Miami.

At a press conference Fr. Cutie thanked God and those in the wider community who have supported him. “Your prayers have truly sustained me at this time of transition in my life. With God’s help, I hope to continue priestly ministry and service in my new spiritual home.”

In an announcement about his leaving the Catholic Church, Fr. Cutie said, “I want to assure you that this journey did not begin a few weeks ago. I have searched my soul and sought after God’s guidance for a long time. I have also spoken to friends in and outside the Episcopal Church about their service to God and the many similarities that exist among the various branches of Christianity, which profess the Catholic faith.”

“I will always love the Catholic Church and all its members. But I want to start today by going into a new family,” Cutie said.

“Here before this community where I have chosen to serve and where I live, I am going to continue to proclaim the word of God and my love for God,” he added.

There’s more detail in the Miami Herald:

The Rev. Alberto Cutié, the celebrity priest removed from his Miami Beach church after photos of him kissing and embracing a woman appeared in the pages of a Spanish-language magazine earlier this month, has left the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami to join the Episcopal church and announced that he will marry the woman he has dated for two years.

Joining him in becoming an Episcopalian was the woman in the photos, Ruhama Buni Canellis, 35.

The small, private ceremony happened at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Trinity Cathedral, the church’s South Florida headquarters in downtown Miami.

Cutié, dressed in a white dress shirt, a black jacket and black dress pants, sat smiling beside his fiancé during the half-hour ceremony. Priests and deacons from the Episcopal church were by his side — many notably accompanied by their wives.

Bishop Leo Frade, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, officiated as Cutié and Canellis knelt in front of the bishop and were received into the Episcopal church.

The bishop also gave Cutié special status as a lay minister, meaning he can preach in Episcopal churches but not celebrate the Eucharist, the symbolic body and blood of Christ.

Cutie will give his first sermon as an Episcopalian 10 a.m. Sunday at the Church of The Resurrection in Biscayne Park. It will take Cutié at least a year to be certified as an Episcopal priest.

”I am continuing the call to spread God’s love,” Cutié said at a later news conference, adding that he has gone through a “deep spiritual and ideological struggle.”

At a press conference late Thursday afternoon, Archdiocese of Miami officials expressed disappointment in Cutié and had strong words for the Episcopal Church, especially Bishop Frade.

”This is truly a setback for ecunemical relations and cooperation between us. The Archdiocese have never made a public display when for doctrinal reasons Episcopal priests have joined the Catholic Church and sought ordination,” said Archbishop John Favalora. He said he had not heard from Frade about the transition and had not spoken to Cutié since May 5, adding that Cutié never told the archbishop he wanted to get married.

”Father Cutié is removing himself from full communion with the Catholic Church and thereby forfeiting his rights as a cleric,” Favalora said, later adding that Cutié is still “bound by the promise to live the celibate life which he freely embraced at ordination. Only the Holy Father can release him from the obligation.”