NATIONAL BRIEFING / FLORIDA
A popular priest known as “Father Oprah” has left the Roman Catholic Church and joined the Episcopal Church less than a month after a tabloid published photos of him cavorting on the beach with his girlfriend, triggering a scandal.
The Rev. Alberto Cutie held a news conference at the pulpit of the Episcopal Church’s Trinity Cathedral in Miami.
Standing behind him: the Episcopal bishop, a half-dozen Episcopal priests and his girlfriend.
He did not talk about his relationship with the woman, who has been identified in local media as 35-year-old divorcee Ruhama Buni Canellis.
He did say in a statement that he “began to have spiritual and deep ideological struggles” and “has seen the ways that many of my brothers serve God as married men, with the blessing of forming a family.”
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