Padre Alberto: A leadership crisis or opportunity

Padre Alberto: A leadership crisis or an opportunity?


I have just returned from a quick trip to Miami to visit my mother and my daughter who gave birth to a beautiful, blue eyed little boy six months ago. The kid will only be allowed to call me papa, not grandpa and sometimes I will refer to him as my nephew instead of my grandchild, for obvious ego reasons. My daughter really gets a laugh out of all this.
Padre Alberto is all that Miami is talking about, to a lesser extent Puerto Rico, and because of the communications environment we live in, the whole world as well.
It is definitely bad news for the church that he was photographed touching and kissing a very pretty lady on the beach, not far from the church he delivers his sermons on how to live a moral life so that you can then go to heaven.
But for him personally, money can’t buy the amount of publicity he has received and due to the fact that he is not only a priest, but also an author, I suspect that his book will sell a lot more than what it has sold in the past. And if he decides to leave the church and become a motivational speaker, I can assure you he will be very successful and will get very high fees.
Former president Bill Clinton, who was almost kicked out of office is now one of the best paid speakers in the world. Until recently he was the highest paid, but he just lost out to none other than Tony Blair who got paid $250,000 for one speech.
Some years ago, Padre Alberto invited me to his television program to discuss religion, the humanist movement in the world and other interesting topics. During that debate the subject of celibacy came up and he defended it very strongly if I recall correctly.
The good news is that Padre Alberto was with a woman and not with another priest or what would have been a disaster for the church, an altar boy or a minor.
Given the very sad situations the church has been involved in recent years, it should be viewed as a positive that the church’s most famous Hispanic priest was indeed caught with a woman, and a very attractive one if I may say. This was not a misdemeanor or a felony although we are very sure that he was not confessing the young lady either.
After the photos came to light a few days ago, Padre Alberto has apologized to the whole world but hasn’t said he will never do it again or that he is ready to stop the relationship with the young woman. On the contrary, he maintains that he is in love with her. He asked to be removed from his job at St. Francis de Sales church in Miami Beach not fired as some media has reported. Keep in mind that this is so at the time I am writing this article. By now you know that things change rather fast.
There is no doubt that his actions have upset many parishioners although the overwhelming majority of them are backing him up, at least in his own church. The problem for the church is that this has opened Pandora’s Box and the debate over the celibacy vow is now in front of the whole world. This is a crisis for the church but as I have said before in my columns, it could also be an opportunity.
There is no doubt that thousands of intelligent and decent candidates for the priesthood have been deterred from becoming priests because of that musty rule, established more than 400 years after the death of Christ, that prohibits marriage or even sexual relations with any human being.
You can look at the statistics and you will realize that the number of active priests in the Catholic Church has been decreasing at an alarming rate for years and the church is ravenous for candidates. My late aunt, a nun her whole life in a monastery in Bogota, Colombia when I visited her once a year to do a motivational talk to all the nuns, would tell me how difficult it was for the church to attract nuns and priests.
We must accept that Father Alberto was wrong and his actions leave a lot to be desired. A vow is a vow and if you are not willing to live by it, then you should not be getting up every day to offer mass, confess parishioners or give advice you are not living yourself. That is an act of hypocrisy and it is simply not right. I am not putting him down, I myself have been guilty of this, I have paid dearly because of it and I have accepted the well deserved criticism. The flesh, no question about it, is weak.
On the other hand, he has helped thousands of people, he serves as an inspiration to millions all over the world and he has been an asset, a very valuable asset for the Catholic Church. I have done exactly the same not in the world of religion but in the world of human behavior.
If I had to defend this young man, I would have lots of arguments to do so. He is forty years old, a good looking guy and his church is located in Miami Beach, where the most attractive models in the world walk up and down South Beach all day and all night long. It is like leaving a marshmallow inside a classroom of kindergarten children when it is time to go to lunch.
We all know that what happened to Padre Alberto and now to Fernando Lugo, the President of Paraguay, is very common. President Lugo has just admitted that he fathered a child when he was still a Roman Catholic Bishop. Two other women are also declaring that Mr. Lugo is the father of their children and Paraguay is turned upside down. President Lugo has said he doesn’t know if they are his children or not which leads us to believe that he had relations with those young women.
President Lugo quit the priesthood so that he could run for President, but Padre Alberto is still an active priest. What has the church done in cases like these? They ship the priest to another church as far away as possible. In the past, very wrongly, it has done so with priests that have committed criminal acts but now with the public outcry, and the civil suites the church has had to settle, it is not happening as often.
To fire a priest as popular as Padre Alberto, with such a large following world wide would be a huge mistake by the church. Episcopal, Methodists, Lutherans and other Christian denominations are salivating over the possibility that they could attract Padre Alberto to their camp. These other public servants are free to marry or date any woman they want and that doesn’t seem to affect their effectiveness in serving their parishioners.
For the Catholic Church losing Padre Alberto to any of these other denominations would be like the Cleveland Cavaliers losing Lebron James to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Unfortunately, it is my feeling that the present Catholic Church leadership will not change its position on celibacy.
I find this very ironic since a few of the original Apostles were indeed married, including one of their luminaries named Peter. He indeed became the first Pope and he didn’t get rid of his wife when he took office. I also don’t think there is historical evidence that would prove that being married affected in any way his holy duties.
Change happens, and it happens everywhere, including the Catholic Church. I know that there are valid arguments on either side but it is my opinion that the Church would be better off if it gave serious consideration to allowing priests to marry. They would attract more candidates and they wouldn’t lose so many priests. Now is the perfect time for this pope to show some leadership. If he doesn’t, you can be sure that the next one, or the next one, will.


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