Original Blog Entry: The priest, the stripper, and their baby

truesee — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:13:34 GMT

The priest, the stripper, and their baby

DAVID OVALLE

Miami Herald

Saturday, 09.26.09

She was an exotic dancer at a Miami strip club called Porky's. He showed up wearing a Hawaiian shirt, eager to share a night in the VIP lounge.

They began a torrid, on-and-off love affair that ended for good in January, after she gave birth to a daughter she says is his. Now, she wants child support and has filed a restraining order against him.

It might be a routine, if tawdry, court case if not for respondent David Dueppen's job: Catholic priest with the Miami Archdiocese.

The sordid story line inflicts another black eye on an Archdiocese already embarassed in May, when popular Miami television priest Alberto Cuti admitted to an affair with a woman, whom he quickly married.

Dueppen, 42, who once served at the same Miami Beach parish as Cuti , is now on leave from his associate priest position at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Pembroke Pines.

Former stripper Beatrice Hernandez filed the restraining order last week, claiming that an argument over paternity and child support escalated when Dueppen began ``grabbing her by the throat and choking her.''

``He is the devil,'' said Hernandez, 42, of Miami, who provided DNA test results naming Dueppen as the father. ``He is the devil dressed as an angel.''

The couple's past relationship was well-known to the church. Three years ago, the archdiocese paid Hernandez a settlement stemming from their long-running affair, which started seven years ago.

Within the last year, Hernandez says, Dueppen -- still a priest -- unexpectantly showed up to rekindle their romance.

The result, she says: Her baby, Marilyn Epiphany Hernandez.

Dueppen, a former Miami-Dade middle-school teacher who became a priest 10 years ago, says his lawyer advised him not to comment.

``I can't talk with you,'' Dueppen told a Miami Herald reporter Friday, adding that Hernandez's version is ``going to have a lot of inaccuracies.''

Dueppen, at his own request, is on indefinite administrative leave, said Archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta, meaning he cannot perform church services or appear in priest garb.

Dueppen requested the leave for ``personal reasons'' during a meeting with Archbishop John C. Favalora in mid-August, she said.

Agosta could not say if Dueppen had revealed the baby's existence to the church, but she was unaware of the allegation. ``This information, if it's accurate, is very disappointing,'' she said.

Dueppen, looking to fulfill a spiritual void, turned to the cloth in 1999. He told The Herald at the time he had wrestled with giving up women and his dream of a large family.

``I sit down and ask Him that He give me the strength and the gifts to be able to serve His people,'' he said in an interview then. ``I am following what I believe is the will of God for me.''

A decade earlier, as a student at the University of Miami, Dueppen criticized the school's decision to install condom vending machines on campus.

``It will increase pressure for students to have sex, especially among freshmen. The only safe sex is abstinence,'' he told The Herald in a story on the controversy.

But abstinence was not in the cards when he met Hernandez, according to her account.

Hernandez says she met Dueppen while stripping near Miami International Airport. Her stage name: Lisa.

She spent a Sunday night with Dueppen -- who had shed his priest collar -- drinking wine in the VIP room. Soon, Hernandez says, Dueppen was visiting the club twice a month, and she began visiting him in the Keys, where he started out as a priest at St. Mary's Star of the Sea.

LINK TO STORY AND PHOTO:

http://www.miamiherald.com/367/story/1240626.html

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