As if the Father Alberto Cutié saga weren’t enough of a telenovela, the priest has offered an only-in-Miami twist.

Father Alberto Cutié

“I knew that during some time I was being followed,” Cutié said. ‘I think that being Cuban American, we have that paranoia that perhaps it could be someone from another government, from another place … I had experiences at Radio Paz of seeing strange cars when I would leave work late or arrive early. I would see things and I would say, ‘I wonder who would be following me?””

But that didn’t stop him from his moment of fun in the sun with his girlfriend of more than two years, whom Cutié still has not named directly but who has been identified in media reports as Ruhama Buni Canellis, 35, a divorced mother living in South Beach.

Cutié said it was his companion on the sand who first noticed they were being taped. “I look and I see the camera,” Cutié said. ‘My first reaction was, `What can I do? It’s already happened.’ My first reaction was to stay calm.”

CAUGHT ON CAMERA

He says the videographer, a heavyset woman who was trying to hide the camera, left the minute she realized Cutié spotted her. He says he has no idea who she is and that he learned of the spread in TVNotas the day the Mexican magazine hit the streets.

Univisión’s Teresa Rodriguez asked if the woman with the camera tried to contact him to sell him the photos.

“Nobody talked to me about it,” he said.

Cutié said he was attracted to his love almost from the moment they met about 10 years ago in church. He said she wrote him a letter three or four years later saying that she wanted to be his friend and that she promised that was all she wanted to be.

She suggested they go out for coffee. He turned her down that time, but later agreed to meet.

“I was dressed like a civilian,” he told Rodriguez. ‘I told her I would meet her at the rectory, and I put on my black suit and collar so that it would be clear, so that she knew, `There is not going to be anything here.’ I just knew there was this strong connection.”

He said he doesn’t remember the details of that conversation but that they spoke about God and the Bible.

What attracted him?

PASSION FOR JESUS

“She is a good woman, a simple woman, a humble woman,” Cutié said.

“But what attracts me most, besides that I think she is physically beautiful, is her faith … I think she has the same passion that I have for Jesus.”

“Is she the love of your life?,” Rodriguez later asked.

“If not, I would not be in this situation,” Cutié said.

At the end of the program Rodriguez reported she had a subsequent conversation with Cutié in which he “categorically denied” rumors that Canellis, who reportedly has a 14-year-old son, also has a younger child that could be his.

The Archdiocese of Miami made no indication Wednesday of what would happen to Cutié, who was removed from his Miami Beach church after the compromising photos of him with his girlfriend surfaced last week.

“The Catholic Church is a loving, patient and caring church and it asks for everyone’s prayers for Father Alberto Cutié as he continues his prayerful journey,” said spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

While Archbishop John C. Favalora has largely remained quiet on the Cutié saga, speaking through two short prepared statements, the celebrity priest was the topic of discussion over the weekend by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, the Archbishop of Lima, according to the Catholic News Agency.

`A GIFT FROM GOD’

“Chastity is a gift, and not a repression as some are saying, much less a mockery or a sarcastic comment. No, chastity is a gift from God! We must ask ourselves: How are you receiving the gifts of God? How are you caring for them?” Cipriani said regarding Cutié.

“On a personal level he should be completely forgiven, but on the public level in which this situation has occurred, we must clarify in order to teach the faithful what God wants.”