Statement by Fr. Cutie's Bishop

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JReducation said:
I’m not picking on you or protecting Father Cutie’s actions whatsoever. My feeling is that Father Cutie has already made his choices and there is nothing that we can do here or at the ecclesial level to undo it. Only he can undo what he has done.

On the other hand, I do believe that we should educate Catholics on how the Church thinks regarding sacraments and law. As to the title, I’m following the lead of the Archbishop and our religious superiors.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Well, you are entitled to that belief and I to mine. I will not refer to him as “Father”.
 
Well, that’s fine. Now, if we’re discussing Archbishop Favalora’s statement, it is important to take the entire statement. Archbishop Favalor not only acknowledges the priesthood of Father Cutie, but also the canonical issues that are involved in this situation.

From my perspective, I believe that the most contraversial issue here is the publicity that this has generated. There is no good reason for it.

Fr. Cutie is not the first or last priest to leave the Church. But the media frenzy and the discussions on this issue are over the top. At some point we have to say that it’s time to move on and wait until the prodigal son comes home . . . if he decides to come home.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Well, that’s fine. Now, if we’re discussing Archbishop Favalora’s statement, it is important to take the entire statement. Archbishop Favalor not only acknowledges the priesthood of Father Cutie, but also the canonical issues that are involved in this situation.

From my perspective, I believe that the most contraversial issue here is the publicity that this has generated. There is no good reason for it.

Fr. Cutie is not the first or last priest to leave the Church. But the media frenzy and the discussions on this issue are over the top. At some point we have to say that it’s time to move on and wait until the prodigal son comes home . . . if he decides to come home.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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I agree that the most controversial issue is the scandal generated by the publicity. That’s really what I came here to discuss. Not why I don’t refer to him as “Father”. You picked the “Mr. Cutie” out of my original post on the scandal and have extended it for several pages now, when I think the focus on what I’m doing is wasted time. I do not acknowledge him as my spiritual father, just as I would not acknowledge a biological father if he did something heinous. That doesn’t make him technically not my biological father. Not calling someone father does not take away the biological fatherhood and my not calling Cutie father does not take away his priestly fatherhood. So, I don’t want to call him father. And I’m not going to. I’m not an Archbishop and I’m not making a public statement. I don’t feel bound to discuss him as though I am. There are worse things that I could call him than “Mr. Cutie”.
 
Another important detail that male religious superiors want the laity to notice about Bishop Favalora’s statement is not only the recognition of his priesthood as on-going and irreversible, but also the fact that Fr. Cutie DID NOT violate a vow or vows.

Fr. Cutie sinned against chastity and against the promise of celibacy. Only religious men and women make vows, not secular men and women. Fr. Cutie is a secular priest. Secular priests make a promise of celibacy and a promise of obedience to their bishop and the Holy See.

The sin against the promise of celibacy is objectively grave. However, objectively speaking, the sin against a vow of chastity is even more grave, because the vow of chastity is an act of consecration of a person’s entire life to God, the Church, the founder of his community, to the community itself.

In this case, there is no founder, no community and no act of consecration. The promise of celibacy is a promise to comply with a Church discipline.

The vow of chastity is not a promise to comply with a discipline. It is a covenant between the person and all the above to live within a religious family, to accept the religioius family in place of one’s biological family, to unite one’s life to the Crucified Christ for the salvation of one’s soul, the salvation of the religioius community and the salvation of the the Church. It frees one from any attachments, even geographical attachments to a particular place, such as a diocese or local Church and binds us in a myserious way to the Universal Church past, present and future. It commits us to live the Gospel in a communion of saints with the founder of the community, his canonically elected successors and ones brothers and sisters in the religious family to which one belongs. None of these elements are present in a promise of celibacy.

Part of the mission that has been assigned to religious is to help those who do not know the difference between a promise of celibacy and its effects vs a vow of chastity and its effects come to a greater understanding. Unfortunately, there are many who are saying that Fr. Cutie broke his vows or violated his vows. He is not in vows. There are no vows to break or violate.

On another issue, the Archbishop is very clear. Fr. Cutie is still bound by the promise of celibacy, whether he is a Catholic or an Episcopalian. The promise is never broken. One can sin against the promise, but the promise remains in effect and one is bound to keep trying to fulfill what one has promised. The solution would have been to go to confession, do penance and keep trying to fulfill what he promised. The best analogy is marriage. If one is unfaithful to the spouse, one continues to be married and the marriage vows are still in effect. The infidelity does not undo the marriage vows.

In choosing to leave the Church, Fr. Cutie is simply running away from a reality that remains intact. The promise that he made is still there. It is still binding until the Holy Father says that it is no longer binding.

The conditions under which the Holy Father can say that it is no longer binding are up to the Holy Father. The individual has to negotiate that with the Holy See.

Dispensations don’t all have the same conditions. Some have commutations of the promise. Others dispense with the promise completely. Others suspend the promise until the person can fulfill it. This judgment belongs only to the Holy Father. No bishop or lay person can decide this. The individual priest can only ask, but the outcome is in the hands of the Holy Father.

Another detail for learning is the question of faculties. A priest who does not have faculties from an Ordinary, cannot celebrate the sacraments licitly and some sacraments he can’t celebrate with validity. In this case, Fr. Cutie cannot validly witness a marriage between Catholics; but he can validly do so between Episcopalians. He can validly absolve from sin someone who is in serious danger of death, regardless of his status.

There are many lessons in this statement. I guess there is always good that can come from every situation.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Why do you continue to defend this guy? I mean, I really can’t believe that you are defending this guy. He caused great scandal to the Church and humiliated the Archbishop by rolling around on a beach with a half-naked woman and holding a press conference to announce he’s leaving the Catholic Church. Come on, where are your priorities here? You are criticizing me, a faithful and loyal lay member of the Church to defend a fallen priest. What? I just think that your focus here is really off the mark.
 
if this exCatholic priest will be joining or has joined the Episcopal church to be ordained, he will be known as Father Cutie in the Episcopal church.

i did know a priest who left the episcopal church to convert to catholicism and to become an ordained Catholic priest. he could not be referred to as Father once he left the episcopal church and decided that he wanted to become a Catholic priest. he cannot be called Father again until he is ordained in the Catholic church later this year.
 
I wouldn’t be surprised if Notre Dame became an Episcopal University in the future.
 
He will be a spiritual father to the Catholic faithful when or if he returns and is accepted by the bishop. He excommunicated himself by his actions, all else is standards bound in heaven by being bound on earth by the Church that would welcome him back under the auspices of contrition and meeting those standards.

The standards of the Episcopalian Church is what is on display here, vows meant little in the 1400’s and mean little now. The standards of what is right and true is still seen in giant detail in the Catholic Church remaining firm to that which was handed down and not liberalized for the modern philosophical mindset. The modernists condemned in Pope St. Pius X’s encyclical PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS are in full view in the Episcopalian Church.
 
DeoSalvatoreMeo said:
Why do you continue to defend this guy? I mean, I really can’t believe that you are defending this guy. He caused great scandal to the Church and humiliated the Archbishop by rolling around on a beach with a half-naked woman and holding a press conference to announce he’s leaving the Catholic Church. Come on, where are your priorities here? You are criticizing me, a faithful and loyal lay member of the Church to defend a fallen priest. What? I just think that your focus here is really off the mark.
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I’m neither defending nor justifying Fr. Cutie and I’m not criticizing you at all. I’m simply explaining what all of this means within the Church. Many Catholics do not understand the theological and canonical issues here. They get confused and use incorrect terminology or have incorrect ideas about what exactly happened at the canonical and sacramental level.

If you read my post above, I clearly explain what Fr. Cutie’s sin is. If you read the Archbishop’s statement, he clearly explains what the sin is. My post is speaking to the Archbishop’s statement, which is what thsi thread is about. This thread is not about Fr. Cutie.

If you had been at our community meeting, you would have heard our superior speak of the importance of explaining to the faithful the difference between violating a promise and violating a vow, because most people don’t know that there is a difference. Many people believe that all priests are consecrated religious. It is important that they understand that this is not the case here.

If you had been at the chancery, you would have heard the discussions regarding the difference between the sin against celibacy and the sin of apostasy and the penalties that each incurs. They are not the same penalties. Most lay people do not know this. They want to know and understand why something happens one way in one situation and differently in another situation.

For example, some people who come to our religious house wanted to know why Fr. Cutie was not excommunicated for having a girlfriend on the side. They did not understand that this is not one of the excommunicable offenses, but that the priest can be suspended and even dismissed from the clerical state, but this is different from excommunication. They did not understand that if the priest agreed with the bishop to change his lifestyle that he could remain in active ministry, maybe not in the same diocese. This is what the Archbishop is referring to when he speaks about the prodigal son coming home. I spoke about this above. I clearly said, “if he chooses to come home.”

I have no desire to defend Fr. Cutie or damn him to hell either. My desire is to help people understand what has happened and why these things are handled in this manner by the ecclesial authorities. I also wish to help people understand the preisthood better.

This thread is on the Archbishop’s statement. The statement has to be understood by those who read it or heard it on Sunday in their parishes or their religious houses. The statement has to be understood in the light of Canon Law and Sacramental Theology.

My role here is to help people understand that dimmension of the statement, not Fr. Cutie. He’s being discussed on another thread under the name "Father Oprah . . . "

I do believe that at some point we get more good out of understanding the canons and sacramental theology involved here, than repeating over and over what Fr. Cutie did. What does that teach us?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF
 
DeoSalvatoreMeo said:
Why do you continue to defend this guy? I mean, I really can’t believe that you are defending this guy. He caused great scandal to the Church and humiliated the Archbishop by rolling around on a beach with a half-naked woman and holding a press conference to announce he’s leaving the Catholic Church. Come on, where are your priorities here? You are criticizing me, a faithful and loyal lay member of the Church to defend a fallen priest. What? I just think that your focus here is really off the mark.
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I don’t see that Br. JR is “defending” Fr. Cutie. Rather he is “defending” Church language. Br. JR never said what Fr. Cutie did was right or moral or no big deal. What he did do was try and keep everyone informed of Catholic teaching and canon law on the issues involved in this casae.
I think you should consider that he is just trying to keep everyone educated on the realities that underlay the technical language.
 
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