The fall from grace for Alberto Cutié has been swift, but the support from parishioners he once advised has come even faster.
Just days after paparazzi-like photos showed Cutié grabbing a hand full of some woman's hiney on a Miami beach, the priest doesn't seem to be hiding and spoke to El Nuevo Herald, saying he had no plans on revealing who the mystery woman is or if she has become a thing of the past.
To identify the woman ''would be inappropriate,'' Cutié told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday. "To protect that person, it's best not to speak about that. It has been enough already. It has been too much for me and for my family.''
He was also mum on if he really broke his celibacy vow.
And while everyone wants to know who is the tempstress powerful enough for the padre to risk eternal damnation, other reports had Cutié questioning his vow of celibacy long before the racy photos hit newsstands.
Cutié, the now questionable 40-year-old virgin, recently said "a married priest would be just as holy" as a celibate one, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report. Such an idea would be a huge no-no in the no-sex world of the Catholic Church.
Still, parishioners at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church on Miami Beach are expected to hold a rally in support of Cutié on Thursday, showing that his charismatic hold on followers may be even stronger as he sins. Cutié stepped down Tuesday as chief administrator of the church and as head of the Archdiocese of Miami's radio network.
Hell must not be that bad a place because parishioners must know a stand with Cutié right now is a stand against centuries-old Catholic principles.
But one parishioner tried to put the scandal in perspective.
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''I would have condemned him if it would have been a young boy, but it was a woman,'' Zunilda Junco, 81, told the Miami Herald.
