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Vatican tells
archbishop to leave wife or face
excommunication
By
Candice Hughes / Associated Press VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Tuesday
threatened to excommunicate an archbishop married in New York this
spring in one of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's mass weddings.
Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo was given until Aug.
20 to leave his new wife, sever his ties with Moon's movement, publicly
promise to remain celibate and "manifest his obedience to the Supreme
Pontiff." If he doesn't, he will be
excommunicated, said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
which enforces Roman Catholic orthodoxy. "The
Church, obliged as she is to proceed to this painful action for the good
of the faithful, does not cease to pray to the Lord, the Good Shepherd,
for the desired return of the archbishop," the congregation said in a
statement. The 71-year-old archbishop was married
May 27 in a group ceremony at a New York hotel. His bride, 43-year-old
Maria Sung, was selected by Moon, as is customary in Moon's movement,
the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
After his wedding, Milingo said he had "no desire
to leave the church that I love." He said he'd kept his priestly vow of
celibacy since 1958 and still considered himself a Catholic but had
decided the church needed to change. "The
sacrifice of celibate life has fulfilled its purpose," he said.
The congregation said it decided to make the
warning public because it did not know where to find Milingo to "invite
him to reflect on the grave consequences of his conduct."
Milingo has long been at odds with the Catholic
hierarchy. He was archbishop of Lusaka, the
capital of Zambia, when he ran afoul of the Vatican over his faith
healing and exorcisms. He resigned under pressure in 1983, a very rare
occurrence with an archbishop below normal retirement age and in good
health. Milingo then was brought to Rome as a
functionary in the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and
Itinerant Peoples, but continued public healing and exorcism. Last year,
he was quietly retired from the post. After
Milingo's wedding, a Moon spokesman said the archbishop and his bride, a
South Korean doctor, planned to move to Africa.
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