'Celebrity priest" Alberto Cutié joins Episcoapl Church, To Marry & Become Episcopal Preist

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, has left the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami to join the Episcopal church and announced that he will marry the woman he has dated for two years.

Joining him in becoming an Episcopalian was the woman in the photos, Ruhama Buni Canellis, 35.

The small, private ceremony happened at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Trinity Cathedral, the church's South Florida headquarters in downtown Miami.

Cutié, dressed in a white dress shirt, a black jacket and black dress pants, sat smiling beside his fiancé during the half-hour ceremony. Priests and deacons from the Episcopal church were by his side -- many notably accompanied by their wives.

Bishop Leo Frade, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, officiated as Cutié and Canellis knelt in front of the bishop and were received into the Episcopal church.

The bishop also gave Cutié special status as a lay minister, meaning he can preach in Episcopal churches but not celebrate the Eucharist, the symbolic body and blood of Christ.

Cutie will give his first sermon as an Episcopalian 10 a.m. Sunday at the Church of The Resurrection in Biscayne Park. It will take Cutié at least a year to be certified as an Episcopal priest.

''I am continuing the call to spread God's love,'' Cutié said at a later news conference, adding that he has gone through a ``deep spiritual and ideological struggle.''

At a press conference late Thursday afternoon, Archdiocese of Miami officials expressed disappointment in Cutié and had strong words for the Episcopal Church, especially Bishop Frade.

''This is truly a setback for ecunemical relations and cooperation between us. The Archdiocese have never made a public display when for doctrinal reasons Episcopal priests have joined the Catholic Church and sought ordination,'' said Archbishop John Favalora. He said he had not heard from rade about the transition and had not spoken to Cutié since May 5, adding that Cutié never told the archbishop he wanted to get married.

''Father Cutié is removing himself from full communion with the Catholic cChurch and thereby forfitting his rights as a cleric,'' Favalora said, later adding that Cutié is still ``bound by the promise to live the celibate life which he freely embraced at ordination. Only the Holy Father can release him from the obligation''

Not so, Bishop Frade said Thursday afternoon. ''That promise is not recognized by our church. If you can find it in the Bible that priests should be celibate, that will be corrected,'' Frade said. ``The only thing we can say is that we pray for ecumenical relations. . .I am sorry they are sorry, and we love them.''

Cutié took a leave from his posts in the Archdiocese of Miami earlier this month when compromising pictures of the 40-year-old cleric were published in the Spanish-language magazine TVnotas. The magazine's pages showed Cutié in blue shorts lying on his back embracing Canellis and kissing her, a violation of his vow of chastity.

Such a relationship is not prohibited in the more liberal Episcopal church, which considers itself the ''middle way'' between Protestantism and Catholicism. It ordains women and has an openly gay bishop.