Two Priests Caught Having Public Sex Near A Miami Playground

Two priests were caught having sex together in public view while in a parked car in Miami Beach near a children’s playground. Neither Diego Berrio, 39, nor Edwin Giraldo Cortez, 30, is from the Miami area. Both are actually affiliated with parishes in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

The New York Post reported that Berrio was a priest at Mission of San Juan Diego, while Cortez served at the St. Aloysius Parish in Chicago. Now, however, Anne Maselli, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago, has said that the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, will not be allowing either priest to minister for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Cortez, who is originally from Colombia, is set to return there.

The two were reported after engaging in oral sex in a parked rental Volkswagen Beetle in broad daylight. Bystanders reported it, concerned about their proximity to a children’s park while engaged in such a display, which could be easily observed by passersby. It was 3:30 p.m. and the car’s windows were not tinted. Police said that when they arrived on the scene, they could easily see Berrio in the passenger seat and Cortez in the driver’s seat, still engaged in sexual acts.

“To get their attention, [the officer] had to knock on their window,” Miami Beach police Officer Ernesto Rodriguez said.

Both men were arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior. However, Cortez, was slapped with an extra charge for indecent exposure as his pants were unzipped when police arrived.

“I parked my vehicle and approached the passenger side of the vehicle on foot,” the arresting officer wrote in his report, according to the Bradenton Herald. “I observed defendant Berrio in the passenger seat, performing oral sex on defendant Giraldo who was seated in the driver’s seat. Giraldo’s pants were unzipped and his genitals exposed…. This act was occurring in full view of the public passing by on Ocean Drive and the sidewalk.”

“The major concern that I had was the fact that it was in public,” said Judge Jeffrey Rosinek, who preceded over the bond hearing of the two priests, per Local 10 News. “When a police officer can come and just watch, that’s a problem.”

This minor scandal comes on the coattails of a much larger sex scandal that has been plaguing the Catholic church after much documentation revealed how deep the cover up was of priests sexually abusing children in their parishes.