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Twice a year (Labor Day and Memorial Day) I enjoy a picnic provided by one of my former seminary professors, along with many of his former students, mostly from classes that came years after me. During that last one, I toasted my old teacher in gratitude for the fact that he had always maintained, in my defense, that one can still believe in the Bound Powers theory, in spite of the language used in Vatican II. He smirked, and asked the younger priests there if they had ever heard of the Bound Powers theory; and no one raised his hand....

VATICAN CITY, 17 DEC 2009 (VIS) - The Holy See Press Office released the following English-language communique at midday today: "For a number of years the Church has followed with great concern the difficulties caused by the regrettable conduct of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. Many attempts have been made to bring Archbishop Milingo back into communion with the Catholic Church, including the consideration of suitable ways to enable him to exercise the episcopal ministry. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were directly involved in those efforts and both Popes personally followed the case of Archbishop Milingo in a spirit...

A SPLINTER Catholic Church called the Catholic Apostolic National Church of Zambia has been launched with Archbishop-elect, Luciano Mbewe, calling for more priests to join the church and fulfill their God-given role by marrying.Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) spokesperson, Paul Samasumo, said in reaction that he did not have much information about the newly formed church but was aware that the Catholic bishops in Zambia would preside over the matter next month. Father Samasumo said in an interview in Lusaka that the newly formed church had created parallel structures in the Roman Catholic Church and could not claim to be part...

An excommunicated Roman Catholic archbishop continued to defy the Vatican when he installed two married priests as bishops on Sunday. In front of a sea of reporters and photographers and several dozen congregants, Raymond A. Grosswirth of Rochester, N.Y., and Dominic Riccio, of the Newark Archdiocese, were installed by Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo at the Trinity Reformed Church. The ceremony concluded a two-day convention of Milingo's advocacy group, Married Priests Now! In a visible break from tradition, the wives of both men helped their husbands on with their vestments before each man was anointed. Milingo, 76, installed four married men...

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — The renegade Roman Catholic archbishop who was excommunicated by the Vatican after he installed married priests as bishops acknowledged Saturday that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was supporting his crusade against mandatory celibacy. At a weekend conference of married priests, Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo distributed a statement to participants headlined "Thanks," crediting the Korean evangelist for his backing for the meeting and for Milingo's Married Priests Now advocacy group. "Today we are present as beneficiaries of Rev. Moon," Milingo wrote. "In order to ensure the success of our convocation he dedicated his key organizations to give their...

A Roman Catholic Archbishop from Zambia with a colorful history of rousing the Vatican and ties to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, will once again annoy his bosses this Sunday when he ordains three married men as priests at a church in West New York.   Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo returned to the United States this July to kick-start his movement, known as Married Priests Now. This weekend he will host a conference at a Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, convening as many as 600 married priests from around the world. On Sunday, Milingo will perform the ordinations at Trinity Reformed Church in...

WASHINGTON -- Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church for having consecrated four married priests as bishops, continues to make the Vatican nervous. In advance of an expected visit by the Archbishop to his homeland, Zambia’s Catholic Episcopal Conference has issued a stern warning, reminding Catholics of his excommunication, and advising them “to be aware that if he holds religious functions, then those ceremonies will be done outside the Catholic Church. Therefore they are not Catholic services.” The warnings demonstrate serious Vatican concern that the charismatic Zambian prelate, healer and exorcist might lead a breakaway congregation in...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has called a meeting Thursday with top Vatican officials to discuss lifting the celibacy requirement for priests seeking to marry or who have already married. Benedict called the summit to examine the implications of the "disobedience" of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the Zambian prelate excommunicated in September for installing four married American men as bishops, the Vatican said Monday. The Vatican stressed the meeting would not open a general discussion of the celibacy requirement but would only examine requests for dispensation made by priests wishing to marry and requests for readmission made by clergy who...

WASHINGTON, September 27 (UPI) — A Roman Catholic archbishop, whom the Vatican says has been excommunicated, Wednesday rejected the Holy See's disciplinary action.      "We do not accept this excommunication and lovingly return it to His Holiness, our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, to reconsider it and withdraw it and join us in recalling married priests to service once again," said Emmanuel Milingo, the Catholic Church's former leader of its Zambian parishes.      Earlier this week, the Vatican said Milingo had excommunicated himself by an illicit consecration of four married men as bishops and also by his public promotion of a...

Church removes Zambia archbishop Pope Benedict XVI has excommunicated a Zambian archbishop, Emmanuel Milingo, two days after he ordained four married men as bishops. A Vatican statement said he had been automatically excommunicated under church law because of his actions. Archbishop Milingo, 76, who now lives in the US, performed the ordination ceremony in Washington DC on Sunday. The Catholic diocese in Washington immediately declared the installations to be invalid. Correspondents say that Archbishop Milingo has long been a controversial figure in the Roman Catholic Church. Six years ago, he married a South Korean woman at a mass wedding in...

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the Zambian prelate who angered the Vatican by getting married in 2001, has been excommunicated for again defying the Holy See by installing four married men as bishops, the Vatican said Tuesday. The Vatican said Milingo, 76, was "automatically excommunicated" under church law for the ordination of the men at a church in Washington on Sunday. The Archdiocese of Washington said Sunday that the installations were not valid. Milingo is in a condition of "progressive, open break with communion with the Church," the Vatican said in a statement. The four men, who claim affiliation with the breakaway...

While many questions remain, the Vatican has released a statement today formally excommunicating Abp. Milingo. Here is the press release in Italian. Amy has an unofficial English translation. Ed Peters posts some initial thoughts on the statement. Jimmy Akin suggests that consecrating bishops without a Papal mandate should itself be an act of schism, and hints at a very disturbing possibility: "As tragic as [this] situation is, I fear that an even greater tragedy may be about to unfold. Since the debacle following Vatican II, the Holy See has been terrified of a major schism occurring that would involve...

The Holy See has warned that there will be “serious consequences” for a rebel African archbishop if reports that he is to work with the author of the Da Vinci Code on a new novel about exorcisms are true. Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the unpredictable African faith healer and exorcist, is reported to have agreed to work with Dan Brown on the project. The agreement was said to have been reached at a meeting in Houston, Texas, attended by representatives of Dan Brown, Sony Pictures, Random House publishing company and Target, an American company which intends to finance the film. Participants...

Just when you thought it was safe, there's a story out there that Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo will soon resurface with some interesting company.... Word quickly flying around indicates that the colorful Zambian prelate, who yet again went missing some weeks back and has been the subject of a missing-person search by his home government, skipped Rome in late June with George Augustus Stallings, patriarch of the breakaway African American Catholic Congregation, based in Washington. Stallings, a onetime priest of the archdiocese of Washington, established his base at the Imani Temple, where he was ordained a bishop in the lineage of...