It was the made-for-TV ending to a weeks-long saga of fame and faith: Alberto Cutié, the telegenic priest embroiled in a magazine-photo scandal, would leave the Roman Catholic church to become an Episcopalian -- and would marry his girlfriend of two years.

But when Cutié's new bishop, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, stood inside Miami's Trinity Cathedral to announce the news to dozens of international reporters, he created his own waves.

The ''Inquisition is over,'' Frade said in widely broadcast remarks after Catholic Archbishop John C. Favalora admonished him for a disrespectful ``public display.''

The style is typical of Frade's nine-year tenure, say those who know him well: casual, off-the-cuff and, to some, a bit too in-your-face.

For three weeks in May, the 65-year-old Cuban American became the face of the traditionally white Episcopal church, granting dozens of interviews about Cutié, who has kept a low profile since preaching at an Episcopal church in Biscayne Park last month.

The first Hispanic to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, Frade has campaigned for gay rights, expanded church missions to the Caribbean and the Americas and, as his courtship of Cutié shows, is intent on recruiting Hispanics to the Episcopal fold.

''He has an entirely different personality,'' says Calvin O. Schofield Jr., a former Navy chaplain who preceded Frade as South Florida bishop. ``He's expanded the influence of the church.''

Born in Havana and raised a Methodist, Frade (pronounced frah-day) left the island in 1960. As a junior at Asbury College in Kentucky, he saw racism first-hand and took part in civil rights campaigns -- a move that cost him his scholarship. He joined his recently exiled family in New York and, attracted by the traditional worship style, began attending Episcopal services in the city while working as a bank teller and later an airline ticket agent.

In 1969, Frade moved to Miami and formally became an Episcopalian at Little Havana's All Saint's church. After studying theology at Biscayne College (now St. Thomas University) and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., he became an assistant priest at Wynwood's Holy Cross Church in 1977.

INVITED GANGS

To increase membership, Frade went door-to-door in the neighborhood, even inviting rival gangs to worship. That hands-on approach has earned the respect of the South Florida clergy he leads today.

''He knows how Hispanics feel. It's a great blessing to have him,'' said the Rev. Rafael Garcia, a Cuban-American priest who built a Spanish-language congregation of 200 at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Coral Gables in little more than a year. Garcia's new assignment: the Church of the Holy Comforter, a small Hispanic congregation in Little Havana where Frade also plans to dispatch Cutié.

After Frade was elected to lead the 83 Episcopal churches from Jensen Beach to Key West in 2000, he made an odd admission to staffers at his downtown Miami office.

''The first thing you need to know,'' he quipped, ``is that I'm a convicted felon.''

In 1980, he and Joe Morris Doss, now retired as New Jersey's bishop, were priests at Grace Episcopal Church in New Orleans, where they were deluged with calls for help after Fidel Castro opened the port of Mariel to Cubans wishing to leave.

They convinced the church to buy an old World War II submarine chaser they christened God's Mercy, teamed with a United Methodist minister from Miami and set out on a rescue mission. By that time, President Jimmy Carter had outlawed the boatlift, and God's Mercy slipped through a U.S. Coast Guard flotilla to dock at Mariel. As their 437 passengers joyfully disembarked in Key West in June 1980, Doss and Frade were arrested and charged with trading with the enemy. They were convicted, but a federal appeals court overturned the verdict in 1983.

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