(RNS) The Rev. Alberto Cutie, the Miami media star who converted from Catholicism to the Episcopal Church last year after his romantic life became public, has been formally accepted as an Episcopal priest.
Cutie, 41, pledged to conform to the “doctrine, discipline, and worship” of the Episcopal Church at a ceremony on Saturday (May 29) at Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park, Fla.
Once known as “Father Oprah” for the one-man media empire that made him a household name in Miami, Cutie was caught kissing his girlfriend in photos published last year. The handsome former Catholic priest married the woman, Ruhama Buni Canellis, last June and is expecting a child in six months, according to the Miami Herald.
“God is not all that interested in you falling down,” Cutie said on Saturday, according to the Herald. “God is interested in you getting up again.”
Cutie had been a lay pastor at Church of the Resurrection since May 2009, but severely curtailed his media presence, leaving behind his newspaper advice column, and television and radio shows when he left the Catholic Church.
Cutie continues to carry a picture of Pope Benedict XVI in his Bible, a friend told the Miami Herald, but says that Catholics “act as if I dropped dead, as if I don’t exist,” the paper reported.
— Daniel Burke
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