allAfrica.com: Mercutio: Milingo Spliced

Archbishop Milingo's latest escapade was eagerly taken up by the news media both locally and world-wide. His marriage to a South Korean woman in a multiple marriage ceremony officiated by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church marked his final departure from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church with which he has been at odds deeply and often over the years.

Pictures of the ceremony show a happy broadly smiling Milingo and his 43-year-old doctor bride, chosen for him by Moon but apparently very acceptable to the archbishop. It is a bold move by Milingo, following his earlier clashes with the Vatican over his claimed healing abilities which he discovered in 1973.

Called to Rome, he was nominated by the Pope as "Special Delegate" for migration and tourism, and was allocated an office and lodgings in the Vatican. But he continued his "exorcisms", and became very popular with the people of Rome as a result.

He was stripped of his official position in September last year, and ordered to vacate his quarters. He was also in the news over "explosive" allegations he made in November 1996 that members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Rome are secretly involved in formal satanic worship. These charges were confirmed by a well-known Vatican insider, scholar and best-selling author Malachi Martin.

Martin said in a magazine article in 1997: "Archbishop Milingo is a good bishop and his contention that there are satanists in Rome is completely correct. Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has had and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome." Martin described the Satanic rituals, including paedophilia, in his novel "Windswept House: A Vatican Novel" (1996). He implies that they entered the Vatican shortly after the election of Pope Paul VI, and became entrenched during the reign of John Paul II. But he adds that the only way he could put these accusations in print was through a novel.

Pope John Paul I, as many readers will recall, followed Paul VI, but reigned for only 33 days and died, reportedly of a heart attack, though he had no history of heart problems. The Vatican refused to sanction an autopsy.

Martin linked these events to the New World Order, which presages the events described in the book of Revelation. He says Milingo is "merely like that actor in the movie Network, who got fed up and said, 'I'm not going to take it any more.'"

The existence of Satanism within the Vatican, claimed Milingo, was the real substance of the "Third Prophecy" of Fatima, which Pope John Paul II recently explained as referring to an assassination attempt on the Pontiff.

On the other hand it could well be that Milingo was simply reacting to the ban on his exorcisms, from which he assumed that the Catholic hierarchy was protecting the devil. He said: "The devil in the Catholic Church is so protected now that he is like an animal protected by the government; put on a game preserve that outlaws anyone, especially hunters, from trying to capture or kill it. The devil within the Church today is actually protected by certain Church authorities from the official devil-hunter in the Church- the exorcist. So much so that the exorcist today is forbidden to attack the devil. The devil is so protected that the one who is the hunter, the exorcist, is forbidden to do his job."

It is doubtful whether years of celibacy adequately prepare a priest for a sudden entry into marriage, but let us wish him every happiness. Even though arranged marriages are not in tune with modern liberal views, he has made an important point and it has had an impact on the Vatican. I fully expect to see the celibacy requirement abolished within ten years.

But one claim by Milingo that is difficult to accept is that he had a message from God saying that the Catholic Church should abandon its ages-old policy of celibacy for its priesthood. The change will come as a result of pressure from the priesthood itself, and the problems the church is already facing in recruiting new members into the priesthood, and not through any supposed messages from God.

Milingo may believe that God spoke to him personally, directing him to abandon the Church and marry. But this is his own personal experience, and he has no means of proving or disproving the "directive". I do not accept that such directives have any objective reality whatsoever. In fact I regard the whole scenario as ludicrous. It supposes that God, after almost 2,000 years of the Catholic faith, decides that he has to do something to prevent this practice of celibacy. What was good about this practice, that God put up with it for so long without quibbling? And has its nature now changed? Or has God simply changed his mind?

The prescribed dogma is that God is unchangeable, and that he therefore never changes his mind (though there are several episodes in the Bible that could easily be interpreted as God changing his mind).

Then has the Catholic practice deteriorated to a point where (like Milingo) God couldn't take it any more? This looks equally unlikely, since Catholic practice through the ages has been replete with cruelties and inhumanities. It is now, in fact, despite some lingering insults to logic, truth and decency, more acceptable than at most times in the past.

And that is due, not to divine intervention as Milingo supposes, but to increasing humanity, and the technical advances which have dramatically improved global communication and emphasised the point that we have known all along - that it is advantageous to work together towards common goals.


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