One of the Photographers Who Took Photos of the Rev. Alberto Cutie Has Apologized
By Jaweed Kaleem and Jose Pagliery
Miami Herald
May 19, 2009
http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1054967.html
One of the two paparazzi who took photographs of the Rev. Alberto Cutié frolicking on a beach with a woman begged for the public's forgiveness Monday on Univisión's Cristina talk show.
While speaking to the show's host, Cristina Saralegui, photographer Lorenzo Gonzalez said he was only doing his job last month when he snapped a few shots of the Roman Catholic priest with his lover.
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"Truly, I want you to understand that we're only news providers," he said.
Also on the show were fellow paparazzi photographer Jose Luis Castillo and Juan Garcia Alejandro, the editor of the Mexican magazine that ran the racy pictures.
Alejandro told the show's host he twice spoke to Cutié the night before the pictures were released. The nervous priest pleaded for the editor to describe the photos, detailing where he was touching her.
"But, Father, you're sticking your hand in her bikini," he told the priest during a conversation that ran until midnight.
"My God, my God, my God," the priest responded, according to Alejandro.
Saralegui spoke dearly of Cutié, whom she has known for years. She and her husband/manager Marcos Avila have been helping Cutié -- who officiated at their daughter's wedding and baptized their grandson -- through the crisis.
"I don't believe anything out of you three," she told her paparazzi guests. "We're not judging Rev. Cutié or the Catholic Church. We just needed to show the other side of the coin."
Cutié got into trouble with the Archdiocese of Miami earlier this month when compromising pictures of the 40-year old cleric appeared in Spanish-language magazine TVnotas. The magazine's cover showed the priest in blue shorts lying on his back embracing a woman with long brown hair.
On Monday's episode of CBS celebrity news show The Insider, a new video aired that showed similar scenes of Cutié and his lover. In the video, Cutié and the woman lay on the beach as the woman caresses his chest and he runs his hands through her hair. The show also advertised a night vision video that will air Tuesday evening and will show the couple kissing in an area that is not on the beach.
Media reports identified the woman as 35-year-old Ruhama Buni Canellis, a divorced mother living in Miami Beach.
Cutié has not confirmed his lover's name, saying he wants to protect her privacy and noting she is not a public figure. She has not spoken publicly.
The pictures prompted the archdiocese to remove Cutié from his duties at his Miami Beach church and as director of the archdiocese radio and television arm.
The archdiocese has offered little indication of the priest's future.
"The Archdiocese of Miami does not have any new statements regarding Father Alberto Cutié," spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said Tuesday.
Agosta has said it is up to Cutié, in consultation with Archbishop John C. Favalora, to decide his future in the church. Cutié has not publicly announced his plans.
He has, however, appeared for one-on-one interviews on two networks -- Univisión and CBS -- to talk about his relationship. He also spoke with The Miami Herald.
In his interview with The Miami Herald, Cutié all but acknowledged his days as a priest with the archdiocese were over, saying he wants to have children "and at the same time serve God" -- something the church does not allow.
Such statements have ignited a debate on the policy that Roman Catholic priests remain celibate. On Monday, Agustin Roman, a retired auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Miami, published an essay on celibacy on the church's website.
"When I was young, feeling the call of Christ, I did not cease to feel also the call to form a family. I think that every priest has been at the same juncture," he said, calling celibacy a "tremendous gift."
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