ROME (AP) — The wife of a Zambian archbishop whose marriage
scandalized the Vatican went to the center of the Roman
Catholic Church on Monday to pray that she be reunited with
her husband.
Maria Sung's hour-long visit to the Vatican came after she
announced plans to begin a hunger strike Tuesday if church
officials denied her request to see her husband, Archbishop
Emmanuel Milingo. She said he was not the ``private property''
of the church.
``Since we got married and we are husband and wife and
against our will we were separated, until we are united again
together, I will fast,'' Sung told The Associated Press
through a translator.
The Vatican has not disclosed Milingo's whereabouts, saying
only that he is on a spiritual retreat and that he should be
left alone to pray.
Sung spent an hour Monday afternoon visiting St. Peter's
Square and St. Peter's Basilica, first praying in front of an
obelisk and then inside at the main papal altar.
Responding to journalists' questions, Sung, who was married
May 27, also suggested she may be pregnant by Milingo.
She said her period is late, which could be because of
travel and physical exhaustion ``or because I'm expecting a
child.'' She said she will wait to be reunited with Milingo
before taking a pregnancy test.
Saying she has complete faith in her husband's character
and faithfulness to her, Sung rebuked the Vatican for keeping
him away from her.
``Before being a Catholic, he is a human being,'' Sung
said. ``He is not private property of the Catholic Church. I
don't want to fight with the Catholic Church, all I want is to
find my husband.''
Milingo and his wife traveled to Italy last week, and
Milingo met with the pope to discuss his reasons for getting
married in a mass wedding held by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
church. Milingo has said priests need not be celibate and that
God's blessings were meant to be given through the family.
Sung said she hasn't seen her husband since Aug. 6 and
hasn't heard from him since Wednesday.
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