"house of Mercy" In Columbus: "Let me tell you one reason why: because of the Bible, of course"

"[Homosexuality] is not tolerated here at all. Let me tell you one reason why: because of the Bible, of course. And then we have little children," House of Mercy director Bobby Harris told WRBL.

Robert F. Kennedy speech ~ Mindless Menace of Violence

After the shootings in Tucson, it is worth listening once again to the words of Robert F. Kennedy after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Cutie tells story of love and faith in new book

[Religion News Service via Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Alberto Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a Catholic priest while church officials looked the other way: priests who got caught with prostitutes, priests who lived with their gay partners, and men of the cloth who kept one bed in the rectory and another with their mistress.

"In the Roman Catholic Church, a scandal is not really a scandal until it becomes public," Cutie writes in his new book, "Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love," which hit stores Jan. 4.

Yet when he was caught by paparazzi canoodling with his girlfriend on a Miami beach in 2009, Cutie was booted from his rectory, dropped from his insurance plan and told he would no longer receive a paycheck.

The global television ministry that had earned him the nickname "Father Oprah" and legions of fans across Miami and Latin America, was over, he was told.

Within weeks, the priest whose made-for-Hollywood good looks provided endless tabloid fodder left to become an Episcopal priest. He later married his girlfriend, Ruhama Buni Canellis, and on Dec. 2, the couple announced the birth of their first daughter, Camila Victoria.

As Cutie describes it in his book, his move to the Episcopal Church was not as quick and convenient as it appeared. In fact, he says his dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church had stewed for several years.

The scandal only intensified his disillusionment with a church he now describes as "incompetent," "inhumane," "merciless" and an "ideological dictatorship."

"The church doesn't need my help to tarnish its image," Cutie said in an interview from his new office at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection near Miami. "The institution has done plenty to tarnish its own image."

The book contains few saucy details about the relationship that blossomed from friendship to romance over nearly a decade. Cutie writes that he was instantly attracted to the shy single mother and was grateful when he was transferred to another parish so he could focus on work.

But as Cutie wrestled with the loneliness and high expectations of the priesthood, he found himself stealing dates with Canellis at quiet restaurants or movie theaters where they would not be seen.

"My life was all about work, but there was something in my life that was missing, a big empty hole: intimacy," he said. "And I would ask whether (celibacy) was really God's rule and what God wants or a man-made rule and what the church wants."

The harsh treatment of priests who were ousted during the clergy abuse scandal that erupted in 2002 only fueled Cutie's disillusionment, and he knew that mandatory celibacy was part of the problem.

"This is one of the real scandals nobody wants to see in the church: good people, mostly good men, who are so lonely on the inside that they are often driven to satisfy basic human emotional and physical needs in all the wrong ways," he writes.

He also struggled with church teaching against homosexuality, divorce, women's ordination and denying Communion to non-Catholics. The priestly fraternity he was promised, he said, was actually a club of lonely ladder-climbers.

While Cutie protects the names of many in the church, he directs his harshest criticism at retired Archbishop John Favalora, who he describes as cold, rigid, arrogant, aloof and "disconnected and uninterested in my life."

"The spiritual fatherhood of a bishop ... was something I experienced through other bishops, but not from you personally," Cutie wrote in a lengthy letter that he never sent to Favalora.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Miami declined to comment about Cutie's book, and referred to a 2009 statement in which Favalora likened Cutie to the Gospel parable of the prodigal son who eventually "came to his senses."

Cutie, 41, actually began talks with the local Episcopal bishop years before the paparazzi pictures forced him out of the church, and said his transition was neither "easy nor quick."

"Yet the more I prayed and thought about the message of Jesus, the more I realized that his is a message of inclusion, not exclusion; a message of love, not rejection; a message of salvation, not condemnation," he writes.

Cutie readily admits that he broke his vow of celibacy, and still wrestles with the disappointment some former parishioners may feel. He says he didn't write the book to settle scores, but out of "deep-rooted disappointment" in an institution that he once believed held all the answers.

"I don't think it's anger," he said. "I think its disappointment, and sadness for the people who believe in an institution that isn't what it proclaims to be."

His new Episcopal flock in Biscayne Park has grown from 28 to about 300 and he's finding his footing in marriage, fatherhood and 3 a.m. feedings for his young daughter.

Marriage, he writes, has made him a better priest because "I feel more connected to humanity," and an infant daughter and teenage stepson have added a new understanding of the term "Father."

"I'm so blessed to be able to experience the gift of fathering a child, knowing that I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to be part of that experience," he said. "To be able to experience it, for me, is a double blessing."

Celebrate Integrity's Patron Saint at Grace Cathedral Eucharist Jan. 12

Eucharist of St. Aelred of Rievaulx

DATE: Wednesday, January 12, 2011

TIME: Ten Minutes past Noon

LOCATION: Grace Cathedral,
1100 California Street,
San Francisco, CA 94108

Jan. 12 is the day we remember St. Ailered of Rievaulx (1110 - 12 January 1167). a medieval English monk who serves as the patron saint of Integrity, the leading LGBT organization in our church. By coincidence Jan. 12 is also the day Oasis President Tom Jackson will serve as nave chaplain in Grace Cathedral and celebrate the Eucharist at ten minutes after noon. His sermon will touch on the good saint and what lies ahead for Oasis, the LGBT ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of California. A dutch treat lunch may follow the service.

Lutheran Bishop Paul Egertson Dies Suddenly

The Diocese of Los Angeles, together with the wider Church, joins in remembering a beloved friend and colleague, retired Bishop Paul Egertson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who died suddenly yesterday afternoon at his home in Thousand Oaks, California.

We pray for his wife, Shirley, their six sons, and all the Egertson family, as well as Bishop Dean Nelson and the people of the Southwest California Synod. Funeral arrangements are pending, and services will be announced as soon as further information is available.

Bishop Egertson led the ELCA's Glendale-based Southwest California Synod from 1995 to 2001. An active and esteemed partner in ministry, he shared deeply in ecumenical and interfaith collaboration -- and together with the Bishops of this Diocese, he joined in shaping a vibrant local expression of the full communion between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church.

Full communion between the two denominations was inaugurated 10 years ago today, January 6, 2001, the Feast of the Epiphany, with a widely attended service in Washington National Cathedral.

Bishop Egertson was a regular participant in the life of this Diocese and will be greatly missed. He was a caring pastor, a compelling professor at California Lutheran University, and a tireless advocate for peace and justice, especially the civil rights of LGBT sisters and brothers in the Church and beyond.

Bishop Egertson's bold, prophetic leadership was instrumental in changes of policy enacted by the ELCA General Assembly in 2009 by adoption of the statement "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust." The Assembly also passed a resolution that changes be made to churchwide policy documents to make it possible for people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders in the ELCA.

Locally this summer, the LGBT ministries of the Synod and this Diocese came together for a street Eucharist in West Hollywood. Bishop Egertson was celebrant, and Bishop Glasspool preached. We could not have known then it was one of the last times we would see our beloved brother bishop.

Paul Egertson was born in 1935. In 1955 he earned a B.A. degree from Pepperdine University, and subsequently received a master's degree in theology from Luther Seminary and a doctorate from the Claremont School of Theology. He served as a pastory in several congregations in addition to his academic work.

Together with Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce and Bishop Mary Glasspool, and with the retired Bishops of this Diocese, please join me in prayers of thanksgiving for the life, ministry and continuing legacy of Bishop Paul Egertson.

Rest eternal grant your servant Paul, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him.

Your brother in Christ,

+J. Jon Bruno

Prayers of the People developed to recognize landmark 10th Anniversary of Episcopal-Lutheran “Called to Common Mission”

In honor of the tenth anniversary of full communion between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Prayers of the People have been prepared for use by congregations in both denominations.

“The Episcopal Church and the ELCA are celebrating the tenth anniversary of our full communion and the acceptance by all of the landmark Called to Common Mission,” explained the Rev. Dr. Tom Ferguson, Episcopal Church Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations Officer. “Prayers have been prepared to honor the past decade of our mission together, and for our ministry together in the future.”

Prayers of the People are available here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ecumenism orhttp://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/POP_10th_Anniversary_ELCA_branded.pdf

Noting that on January 6, 2001, The Episcopal Church and the ELCA entered into a relationship of full communion through Called to Common Mission, Ferguson explained that this action was not a merger. “In full communion both churches retain their autonomy and structures but agree to work together for joint mission and witness in the world,” he said.

Ferguson suggested congregations and individuals begin using the prayers during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which begins on January 18.

Prayers are presented for use in all six forms of Prayers of the People found in the Book of Common Prayer. For example, the suggestion for Form II is: “I ask your prayers of thanksgiving for the tenth anniversary of the relationship of full communion between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Pray for enduring commitment to common mission.”

Equality California Hails Court’s Decision Denying Standing to Imperial County in Prop. 8 Federal Challenge

Federal Court will now ask California Supreme Court to Consider Issue of Standing

San Francisco – Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Imperial County’s attempt to intervene in the Proposition 8 federal challenge, and the court will now ask the California Supreme Court to consider whether the groups that placed Proposition 8 on the ballot have legal standing to appeal Judge Walker’s decision to overturn Prop. 8 on the grounds that the measure is unconstitutional.

Equality California filed the only amicus brief arguing that Imperial County lacked legal standing to appeal Prop. 8. In addition, out of the more than 25 amicus briefs submitted, the Ninth Circuit Court has chosen to send the California Supreme Court Equality California’s second amicus brief arguing that Prop. 8 proponent Protect Marriage also lacks legal standing to appeal.

Statement from Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors:

“We are very pleased with the court’s decision to deny Imperial County standing, and it is clear the court wants to determine if California law allows proponents of a constitutional initiative to step into the state’s shoes when state officials decline to defend a measure that clearly violates the equal protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. We are optimistic that the case will be dismissed, marriage equality restored and that same-sex couples and their families will finally enjoy equality and dignity under the law.”

Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocacy organization in California. Over the past decade, Equality California has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil rights protections in the nation. Equality California has passed more than 70 pieces of legislation and continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, electoral work, public education and community empowerment.www.eqca.org