Vatican fears consequences of Milingo affair

It has been the answer to news editor's prayers, the perfect "silly season" story involving the Pope, and the Rev Sun Myung Moon…

It has been the answer to news editor's prayers, the perfect "silly season" story involving the Pope, and the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the African archbishop and his jilted bride, with allegations of kidnapping and drugs thrown in for good measure.

Yet, behind the hype, the dramatic story of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo's prodigal son-style return to the Catholic fold after a brief elopement with the "Moonies" inevitably raises serious questions about the Catholic Church and Africa.

For much of the last 20 years, the Zambian faith healer and exorcist Archbishop Milingo has been at odds with the Roman Curia. To his devoted followers, he is a messiah sent to teach the word of Jesus. To his critics, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, he is a charlatan whose practices smack not so much of inculturation as of mumbo-jumbo and witchcraft.

No stranger to controversy, Archbishop Milingo (71) shook the Catholic world last May when he married a 43-year-old Korean woman, Dr Maria Sung Ryae Soon, in a group wedding presided over by the charismatic head of the Unification Church, the Rev Sun Myung Moon. Although Archbishop Milingo subsequently claimed that his marriage did not mean a conversion to the Rev Moon's creed, the African prelate hardly did much to improve strained relations with the Vatican when declaring that he wanted to campaign against the Catholic Church's celibacy rule for priests.

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In mid-July, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith spelt it out loud and clear, warning Archbishop Milingo that he would be excommunicated by August 20th unless he met three conditions: he must separate from his wife, renounce all connections with the Moonies, and promise full obedience to the Pope.

Then, in a dramatic blitz on August 7th, the archbishop showed up at the Pope's summer residence in Castelgandolfo, seeking and obtaining an audience with Pope John Paul II. On that occasion and in two subsequent letters, the archbishop asked the Pope for forgiveness for "the harm done and the scandal caused to the Church".

The prodigal son has returned and all is well, then. Or is it? There remains, of course, the not insignificant matter of the archbishop's wife who has since gone on a hunger strike, right here in the Eternal City.

She says she desperately wants, if not to reclaim her husband, at least to see him. The archbishop has not been seen in public since an August 8th news conference. She has consistently implied he is being held prisoner by the Vatican.

Surrounded by a media posse, she has been seen resting in bed alongside a picture of the archbishop or going to St Peter's to pray. After one such prayer session on August 15th, she ominously told reporters just why she had been praying: "Throughout history the Vatican has killed many people. I asked God that this mistake should not happen anymore in this time".

Maria took her name out of respect for her husband's Catholicism. She also let it be known her marriage had been consummated when she publicly worried that she might be pregnant. To what one suspects was the huge relief of the Curia, a subsequent pregnancy test proved negative.

Given that the Moonies have long been accused of systematic brainwashing, many believe the Unification Church is manipulating Maria's every move. The Italian weekly Panorama has claimed that Archbishop Milingo is the second husband found for Maria Soon by the Rev Moon.

Two of the archbishop's Italian supporters, Maurizio Bisantis and Alba Vitali, say they had to snatch the drugged archbishop away from the Moonies at Milan airport.

The archbishop himself, however, denied that allegation at his August 8th news conference.

Whatever way the story of the Zambian archbishop and his abandoned bride ends, serious questions remain.

Is the Catholic Church frightened that, once excommunicated, the archbishop might found his own African Church, complete with a married clergy and inspired by traditional African beliefs about the world of spirits? Is Archbishop Milingo a charlatan who, in the words of his lawyer Emanuela Comiero, only went through the Moonie wedding service "to manifest his unhappiness" and because the Moonies "showed him the respect and consideration denied him at the Vatican"?

Whatever the answers, the story shines an unflattering light on the Catholic Church and its complex relationship with Africa.