Posted on 09/26/2006 9:05:06 AM PDT by SmithL
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 Synod of Old Catholic Churches, also were automatically excommunicated for being ordained, the Vatican said.
In its announcement of the excommunication, the Vatican accused Milingo of "sowing division and dismay among the faithful," and said it lost patience with him after trying to persuade him against the ordinations.
Milingo's spokesman in Washington did not immediately return a phone call.
Milingo has long had a troubled relationship with the Vatican. In 2001, he was married to a South Korean acupuncturist chosen for him by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, in a group wedding ceremony in New York. Upon appeal from Pope John Paul II a few months later, he renounced that union.
Last summer, Milingo reappeared in the United States and said he was living with his wife in the Washington, D.C. area.
He gained a strong following in a church where he had been stationed near Rome because of his reputation as an exorcist. But Catholic officials accused him of promoting African indigenous beliefs by performing mass exorcisms and healing ceremonies.
The defiant ordination of the men appeared to be the last straw for Rome.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Goodbye, lunatic.
Finally. Should have occurred when he married the just met bride at the Moonie ceremony. Why it took this long for Rome to act is beyond comprehension and caused considerable scandal.
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