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Leave wife, bishop
ordered
By Bruce Johnston
in Genoa
(Filed: 18/07/2001)
AN African archbishop who married a Moonie was told by the
Vatican yesterday to leave his wife and return to the
Roman Catholic Church.
Mgr Emmanuel Milingo, 71, was given until
Aug 20 to leave Korean-born Maria Sung, 43, and sever
all ties with the of Unification Church of the Rev Sun
Myung Moon or face formal excommunication.
He was also urged to renew his vows of
celibacy and swear allegiance to the Pope. The
archbishop was married at a mass wedding presided over
by Sun Myung Moon in New York in May.
The ultimatum came from by Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's chief of dogma at the
Pope's request. He accused Mgr Milingo of breaking his
vows, adhering to the Unification Church, and thus
"breaking the communion with the Pope and his other
bishops".
At the time of his marriage to Ms Sung, a
doctor, the Vatican said, Mgr Milingo had automatically been "cast out" of the
Church. But privately, it sought to re-establish
ties in an effort to woo the controversial but popular
archbishop back into the fold.
The Vatican was said to fear that Mgr
Milingo found his own Church in Africa with financial
help from Sun Myung Moon.
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