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Fr Alberto Cutié, the Catholic media priest caught cuddling his girlfriend on a Florida beach, has jumped ship and become an Anglican - to the delight of Ruth Gledhill of The Times.  Archbishop John Favalora of Miami is understandably offended. The priest has not been released from his vows or laicised; it is impossible to imagine the Catholic Church snapping up an Anglican clergyman who had left because he was caught breaking his vows. The Archbishop says: "Father Cutié’s actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami − especially our priests – and led...

CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz As we report below, Father Alberto Cutié has decided to join the Episopal Church. Some questions arise ... 1. What will his status be as a Catholic? 2. Is he excommunicated? 3. Will he still be a priest? 4. Will his sacraments be valid? I put them to canonist Msgr. Jason Gray, judicial vicar of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., by e-mail. 1. What will his status be as a Catholic? HE IS IN SCHISM. 2. Is he excommunicated? YES Said Msgr. Gray: “Fr. Cutie is a Catholic priest joining a non-Catholic Christian denomination.  This is...

As was reported yesterday, Rev. Alberto Cutié -- the popular Catholic priest caught in a longtime affair -- has joined the Episcopal Church. This morning's New York Times has a surprisingly perceptive lede: A Roman Catholic priest who admitted this month that he was torn between two loves -- his church and his girlfriend -- announced his choice on Thursday.The priest, the Rev. Alberto Cutié, said he was joining the Episcopal Church and planning to marry his girlfriend of two years, who was also becoming an Episcopalian...."With God's help," [Cutié] added, "I hope to continue priestly ministry and service in...

Archbishop John C. Favalora. Credit: Florida Catholic Miami, Fla., May 28, 2009 / 05:42 pm (CNA).- Archbishop John C. Favalora of Miami made a statement on Thursday afternoon in which he revealed that he was kept in the dark about Fr. Alberto Cutié's decision to join the Episcopal Church. The archbishop also stressed that by his actions, Cutié has forfeited his rights as a cleric but is not dismissed from the promise of celibacy he freely made. “I am genuinely disappointed by the announcement made earlier this afternoon by Father Alberto Cutié that he is joining the Episcopal Church,”...

(CNN) -- Father Alberto Cutie, an internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, is joining the Episcopal Church to be with the woman he loves, he said Thursday. "I will always love the Catholic Church and all its members," he said at a news conference. "But I want to start today by going into a new family. "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," Cutie said. Cutie (pronounced...

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, will leave the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami to join the Episcopal church. The small and private ceremony will happen early Thursday afternoon at Trinity Cathedral, the church's South Florida headquarters in downtown Miami. Bishop Leo Frade, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, will officiate. Later, Cutié is expected to announce that he will marry his girlfriend, whom media reports have cited as 35-year-old Ruhama...

Episcopal Church fires 61 priests and deacons in the Central Valley. Part of the reason, is they followed former Bishop John David Schofield when he rebuked the national church for its stance on the ordination of gays into the priesthood. The 61 clergy had six months to deny or recant their stance against...

Well Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic. The clinic stayed open, no patients were turned away, and the doors never closed. We remain victorious. And that victory is a good thing – but, make no mistake, even though OSA has gone home; our work is not done. If we were to leave this park and discover that clinic violence had become a thing of the past, never to plague us again, that would be a very good thing, indeed; but, still, our work would not be done. If...

"Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done." That was the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale in 2007, repetitiously inciting her disciples to be not just pro-choice but fanatically pro-abortion. This is significant because, according to standard journalistic stylebooks, Ragsdale does not exist. We're told that pro-choice folks don't like abortion; they're just trying to help a woman facing tragedy. Ragsdale, though, says...

Holy Stewardship A statement from the Office of the Presiding Bishop concerning actions in Fort Worth on April 14, 2009 The Episcopal Church, with the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, filed in court today for a declaratory judgment as the rightful owners of all diocesan property, real and personal, including funds and endowments. We feel sorrow that the former diocesan leaders took such actions that led us to this time. However, this is a necessary step in order for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, comprised of Episcopalians of the...

Why an Episcopal Church? Well, because it was close I guess. Reverend Wright is just too far away. President Obama and his family celebrated Easter Sunday close to home: St. John's Church, located across from the White House.Actually he didn't pick it at all. And this might not be his permanent place of worship. Apparently, he is leaving that choice up to his staff. I might just be silly this way, but I always figured the best way to find the right church was through earnest prayer, contemplation, investigation and perhaps even fasting. But this works too I guess. Obama...

Thursday April 2, 2009 "Abortion is a Blessing": US Episcopalian Lesbian Minister Appointed to Head Prestigious Seminary By Hilary WhiteApril 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, an openly lesbian minister in the American Episcopal Church, has caused a stir on the internet with a sermon, posted to her weblog, in which she called abortion a "blessing" and called for the suppression of rights of conscience for health care workers. In her sermon, titled, "Our Work is Not Done," she wrote that there should be no restrictions whatever on abortion: "If we were to find that, while we were...

As a little boy, Bishop George V. Murry was raised as an African Methodist Episcopal, but was so impressed by his experience at his Catholic school that he convinced his parents to allow him to convert. Eventually, they too, became Catholic. In the Diocese of Youngstown, 406 converts have joined the Church just in time for Easter. On Saturday, 169 people received the Sacrament of Baptism, and 237 who were baptized in another denomination received the sacraments of confirmation and the Holy Eucharist. Adults who want to become Catholic must enter a months-long education process known as RCIA, the Rite...

ADV Responds to Appeal by The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia (April 7, 2009) - In response to the appeal in the Virginia church property litigation filed on Tuesday, April 7 by the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church, the Anglican District of Virginia Vice-Chairman Jim Oakes issued the following statement: "We are saddened that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia find it necessary to continue this litigation with an appeal filed during Holy Week. The appeal process will cost additional millions of dollars that could be spent on mission and ministry. Both sides have...

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the cutest clergyman of all? A 66-year-old Staten Island pastor trying desperately to turn back the clock ripped off nearly $85,000 from his congregation to pay for plastic surgery, Botox shots and fancy clothes, authorities said yesterday The Rev. William Blasingame, 66, a fixture at the historic St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church for more than 30 years, began breaking the Eighth Commandment in January 2005 and continued to steal for another three years, according to the Staten Island district attorney. The unwed Blasingame's miraculous makeovers apparently impressed some of the older members of his...

On a stormy Sunday morning in Charlotte, N.C., latecomers were still shaking off wet umbrellas and streaming into a rented chapel at a local Catholic high school as Anglican minister Filmore Strunk led the congregation in reading Psalm 19: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold." For this congregation, those words ring especially true: Less than 15 months ago, the 300-member group was worshipping with more than 1,000 other parishioners in a 22,000-square-foot, gothic-style sanctuary on a prime piece of property in a growing...

Thomas Shaw, the Bishop of Massachusetts: “I am thrilled with the appointment of Katharine Ragsdale as the president and dean of EDS. She brings a wealth of small parish ministry to her new position and it is critical that the new president and dean be able to train and form parish priests for the growth of progressive parishes across the country. She brings a wealth of experience, talent and creativity to this new position.” Dr. Angela Bauer-Levesque, acting academic dean: “I am elated to have the Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale join EDS as its first woman president and dean....

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Ann Holmes Redding has what could be called a crisis of faiths. For nearly 30 years, Redding has been an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. Her priesthood ended Wednesday when she was defrocked. The reason? For the past three years Redding has been both a practicing Christian and a Muslim. "Had anyone told me in February 2006 that I would be a Muslim before April rolled around, I would have shaken my head in concern for the person's mental health," Redding recently told a crowd at a signing for a book she co-authored on religion....

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done... The announcement on Monday, March 30 that The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale was appointed as the sixth and newest president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA, has orthodox and pro-life Episcopalians shaking their heads. Ragsdale, who is an outspoken advocate...

One of the Church of England's most outspoken bishops has announced that he is to resign a decade early to devote the rest of his life to work with Christians in Islamic areas. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church's only Asian bishop, who is just 59 and could have stayed at Rochester until his 70th birthday, intends to use his expertise as an Islamic scholar to work in Pakistan where he was born and in the Middle East to build bridges between Christians and Muslims. A conservative evangelical, he will step down in September after nearly 15...

MANCHESTER, NH (July 9, 2021) -- The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church today has warned that the Diocese of New Hampshire must not in any way be ostracized because it has chosen to elect the church’s first openly non-celibate animal-loving bishop. "As presiding bishop, I am called to see to it that all perspectives are treated with respect,” said the Most Rev. Annie Thangohs. “We can, of course, disagree on the issue of animal-loving in the Christian life. I have seen, however, some distressing accounts in the secular press. I had hoped that we had removed that hateful term,...

It was good to hear some encouraging news from the Church of England, reported by Robert last week. However, little good seems to come from the The Episcopal Church (TEC) in USA. The Church of England Newspaper (27 February 2009) reported that the Anglican Communion’s first Anglican-Buddhist bishop was recently elected at a special convention of the Diocese of Northern Michigan. Concerns had been raised about the suitability of a professed Buddhist who said he had received Buddhist “lay ordination” and was “walking the path of Christianity and Zen Buddhism together” as well as the fact that he was the...

The Bishop of Virginia, Peter James Lee will shortly retire and head to the ultra-liberal revisionist Diocese of California as Dean of its cathedral. Before stepping away from 25 years as bishop of the largest East Coast diocese, he gave an interview to the "Washington Post" in which he made a number of statements that stand in direct contradiction to the Christian Faith and historic Anglicanism. When asked what the most important ways in which the Anglican Communion, the worldwide church of which Episcopalians are a part, has changed in the past 25 years, Lee said this, "The awareness of...

Many cradle Catholics I know look at the moral conflicts tearing apart the mainline denominations with sadness, but as a convert from one of them (the Episcopal Church, the most notoriously divided one of them all), I think this is not quite the right response.We will feel sad at the sight of beloved Christian friends suffering as their churches divide, but we might be heartened to see that because these conflicts express flaws in the original design, they will encourage some to greater friendship, if not full reconciliation, with the Catholic Church.The sadness we feel will be like the sadness...

Even as a Brown University student, Ann Holmes Redding was never far away from controversy. She was barely into her freshman year in 1968 when she joined a black student walkout to get the university to admit more blacks — a move that resulted in a near quadrupling of the number of black students to about 250 the following year. And after students staged a strike that effectively closed down the university to show their opposition to the Vietnam War, Redding was part of a “blue ribbon” delegation from Brown that went in the spring of 1970 to Washington to...

A Sudanese priest recently had an eye-opening introduction to the U.S. Episcopal Church. John, a clergyman from the Episcopal Church of Sudan, sent an inquiry to the "justice missioner" on the website of the Diocese of Newark. The justice missioner responded to John's email and informed him that her focus was advocacy for people with disabilities, people of color, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community. Although fluent in English, John found this language incomprehensible. He knew Americans talked openly about homosexuality, but he was bewildered by the terms "transgender" and "intersex." John asked the justice missioner if...

Preaching God's word with an eye on national politics Pepperell vicar leads liberal think tank By Rich Barlow Globe Correspondent / March 5, 2009 One day about six years ago, the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale was testifying before Congress on behalf of abortion rights, basking among politicians who were interested to hear her views and happy to shake her hand. The next day, the Episcopal priest was back for a meeting at St. David's, her tiny Pepperell church, where a 2-year-old scaled her chair to perch on her head.

Washington, DC—An Episcopal priest who has received a Buddhist lay ordination has been elected bishop in the Diocese of Northern Michigan. The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who has served in the diocese since 2001, was elected on the first ballot and received 88 percent of the delegate votes. *** Forrester, who has been identified by his former bishop Jim Kelsey as ‘walking the path of Christianity and Zen Buddhism together, is not the first Episcopal clergyman to practice dual faiths. In 2004, Pennsylvania priest Bill Melnyk was revealed to be a druid; while in 2007 Seattle priest Ann Holmes Redding...

As bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, the Rev. Jeffrey Steenson came down on the conservative side of many issues. He opposed the election of the first openly gay bishop, and he did not allow the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese. Steenson said those conflicts made it impossible for him to pursue his ultimate goal of helping the Anglican Communion unite with the Roman Catholic Church. On Saturday, both Catholics and Episcopalians celebrated Steenson's ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. Steenson, a married father of three, said he is the first sitting Episcopal bishop since...

A two-year-old church property dispute between Episcopalians and Anglicans appears to be on its way to the Virginia Supreme Court. On Feb. 3, The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia together filed an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court hoping to overturn a Dec. 19 decision by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows in favor of the Anglican District of Virginia, known as ADV. On Feb. 10, the Episcopal appeal was followed by a motion asking for an exception to the Supreme Court's limit of 35 pages in appeal cases. The property dispute originally arose as a result of...

US Presiding Bishop deposes Church of England Bishop Wednesday, 28th January 2009. 12:01pm By: George Conger. The Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church has announced that she has deposed a bishop of the Church of England from the ordained ministry. On Jan 23, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced that she had accepted the voluntary renunciation of ministry given to her by the Rt Rev Henry Scriven, Mission Director for South America of the newly merged South American Mission Society (SAMS) – Church Mission Society (CMS) and removed him from the ranks of the ordained ministry. Under the terms...

The Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, who has been bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia for 24 years, announced today that he will step down Oct. 1 to make way for a successor who was named in 2007. The diocese, which covers northern and eastern Virginia and includes 80,000 members, is one of the largest in the Episcopal Church, the U.S.-based branch of the global Anglican Communion. Starting this fall the diocese will be overseen by the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, 50, an Alabama native who has worked in dioceses in the South and is known for his work...

The Rev. Canon J. Edwin Bacon Jr. from Southern California has made it no secret that he supports gays and lesbians and same-sex marriage. But his recent pro-gay comments on the Oprah Winfrey show have stunned even the popular talk show host herself. "Being gay is a gift from God," Bacon declared in an episode that aired Jan. 7. Appearing shocked, Winfrey responded, "Well, you are the first minister I’ve ever heard say, 'Being gay is a gift from God,' I can tell you that." Bacon's controversial statement sparked a fiery debate on Winfrey's website, leading the talk show host...

President-elect Barack Obama promised to make his inaugural events the most inclusive ever -- and he is making good on his promise. Just over two weeks after gay rights activists condemned his choice of Saddleback pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the ceremony itself, the President-elect and his inaugural committee announced the choice of Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly-homosexual Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, to open the mass event at the Lincoln Memorial with prayer. Predictably, the committee insisted that the invitation has nothing to do with the furor over naming Warren, who angered homosexual activists and their...

The Obama administration and America are heading into treacherous territory. There are certain kinds of behavior that seem to anger God more than others and at this point, America is already on shaky ground. President-elect Obama has asked V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver the invocation at a pre-inaugural event this Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.” He states, “I am very clear that this will not be a...

By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 1/12/2009 In September 2008, Saddleback pastor and author Dr. Rick Warren wrote to VOL with a proposition. He would make his church available to any Anglican parish wanting to flee the Episcopal Church because of its non-biblical stand on faith and morals. VOL was delighted to accept the challenge and wrote to Bishop John Guernsey of the Anglican Province of Uganda who oversees some 51 parishes in the U.S. and told him about the offer. Bishop Guernsey wrote back saying he would notify a number of churches that might someday be in need of Saddleback's...

NEW YORK – Barack Obama and his message of change will get a ringing endorsement on Inauguration Day from 12 bells at a church near ground zero. "Change ringing is a way that we express the joy of our community, and I think much of the nation is joyous about this inauguration," said Jeremy Bates, a Manhattan lawyer and former Obama campaign worker who will be among the 12 ringers pulling on sturdy ropes in the church's bell tower to mark the historic occasion. Change ringing is far more common outside the United States. Most cathedrals in England have sets...

The selection of Robinson for the opening party on Sunday came after weeks of criticism over Mr Obama's choice of conservative pastor Rick Warren to deliver the religious invocation on Tuesday, January 20, the day Mr Obama is sworn in to office.Robinson, who is the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, will pray at the star-studded event to be broadcast on national television from the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, the inaugural committee said in a statement."Our intention is to root the event in history, celebrating the moments when our nation has united to face great challenges and...

    About 25 years ago, I had the first of many dinners with the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, when he was still a Lutheran. He objected to the term "converting" for a baptized Christian who became Catholic: Rather, such a one "embraced" Catholicism. I demurred, as I thought I had converted, albeit not from so intensely dogmatic a confession as Lutheranism but from the pleasant perch of Anglicanism. That same evening, he pointed out that the heating system in a nearby building was being converted to gas, to which I replied that he should have said it was embracing...

Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the only openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, has been asked to give the invocation at the first official inaugural activity, a welcome event with the president-elect on Sunday afternoon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Robinson had been critical of president-elect Barack Obama for asking Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who encouraged voters to overturn same-sex marriage in California, to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. Episcopal Cafe has an e-mail from Robinson: "I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to...

Bad news travels fast. Though tucked away at a clerical retreat in Nigeria, it took only a flash of electrons for Anglican Bishop Martyn Minns to receive news of the California Supreme Court’s property dispute ruling against St. James parish in the city of Newport Beach, Calif. The court on Monday ruled that the congregation, whose facility overlooks luxury yachts afloat on Lido Channel, must surrender that property to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. St. James is one of about 100 U.S. Episcopal congregations that in recent years have split with the national church hierarchy, first over the ordination...

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. - The Vicar of St. John's Episcopal Church in North Augusta stepped down Sunday. He says it is because he does not agree with the direction the National Church is taking. Now dozens of his congregants are following him to a new church and new denomination. -snip- Now much of Hartley's congregation is following him to The Church of the Holy Trinity which is forming under the Anglican Church in North America but it is far from easy especially for St. Johns older members.

San Francisco (AP) -- The state's high court has prohibited three Southern California parishes who left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay ministers from retaining ownership of their church buildings and property. In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that the property belongs to the Episcopal Church because the parishes agreed to abide by the mother church's rules, which include specific language about property ownership.

We Three Kings of Orient are, Bearing gifts we traverse afar. . . . Who were these gift-bearing kings, these Wise Men of the East? What has their mission meant to Christians across the ages? The Wise Men—not yet called kings—make only a single appearance in Holy Scripture. St. Matthew's Gospel (Mt 2:1-12) tells of their arrival in Jerusalem shortly after the birth of Jesus. They have come seeking the newborn King of the Jews because they had seen his star rise in the East. Herod, the current ruler, knows nothing of an upstart princeling but learns that prophecies place...

It is increasingly difficult to escape the fact that mainline Protestantism is in a state of disintegration. As attendance declines, internal divisions increase. Take, for instance, the situation of the Episcopal Church in the United States. The Episcopal Church’s problem is far more theological than it is moral—a theological poverty that is truly monumental and that stands behind the moral missteps recently taken by its governing bodies. Every denomination has its theological articles and books of theology, its liturgies and confessional statements. Nonetheless, the contents of these documents do not necessarily control what we might call the “working theology” of...

On his TNR blog, Damon Linker flags the schism within the Episcopal Church as the most important and worrying religious development of the past year. Here's an excerpt: With 100,000 members, the schismatic Anglican denomination is so far quite small, though it may well grow if conservative dioceses around the country decide to take the option now presented to them and bolt from the Episcopal Church. But regardless of the numbers involved, the rupture in the church is historically significant and culturally troubling. The Protestant mainline that once ruled and to some extent united the nation continues its decline, split...

Waldo Emerson "Knick" Knickerbocker, a married former Episcopalian minister, will be ordained as a Roman Catholic deacon at 11:15 a.m. Sunday at St. Theresa Church in Junction. The ceremony will be conducted by Bishop Michael Pfeifer, OMI . A month later, on Jan. 28 at Sacred Hearth Cathedral Church in San Angelo, Knickerbocker will be ordained a priest for the Catholic Church. Knickerbocker will be the first married man to be ordained a priest for the Diocese of San Angelo, according to a news release. In 1993-94, Knickerbocker and his wife, Sandie, became members of the Roman Catholic Church. After...

Notwithstanding separation of church and state, in controversies between religious societies, the civil courts have a role to play. When the American Episcopal Church ordained an outspoken, practicing homosexual bishop several years ago, it opened a rift between the “progressive” and “traditional” members and congregations within that religious society. In Virginia, seven (and later a total of eleven) Episcopal congregations voted to leave the American Episcopalian structure and form their own Anglican group in December of 2006. Disputes concerning church properties arose. The Fairfax County, Virginia, Circuit Court handed down its fourth and perhaps last ruling on Friday, December 19,...

A long-awaited property- settlement decision in Fairfax Circuit Court apparently will not be the end of a two-year-long conflict between a minority group of conservative congregations in the Episcopal Church that broke away from the church to join the Anglican District of Virginia. On Dec. 19, Fairfax Judge Randy Bellows upheld the long-debated Division Statute, which was the backbone of the Anglican Church's case. The break-away congregations include several from Fairfax and Loudoun counties. They decided to break off from the Episcopal Church after determining that church leadership was not following a proper reading of Scripture, particularly on the issue...

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Nearly a dozen conservative church congregations in Virginia have won a lawsuit in which they sought to split from the U.S. Episcopal Church in a dispute over theology and homosexuality. The final rulings came Friday from a Fairfax County judge who said the departing congregations are allowed under Virginia law to keep their church buildings and other property as they leave the Episcopal Church and realign under the authority of conservative Anglican bishops from Africa. Several previous rulings had also gone in favor of the departing congregations. The diocese said it will appeal. Eleven Virginia congregations...