Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
29 September 2006
Emmanuel Milingo, the renegade former Catholic archbishop of Lusaka, remained defiant on Wednesday, scoffing at the Vatican announcement that he had been excommunicated.
Milingo told a news conference in Washington, USA, that he would continue his campaign to force the Church to accept married priests, Reuters reports.
"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," Milingo said.
"I'm not excommunicated. Who says? No, I'm not excommunicated. I'm in line with God."
The Catholic bishops of Zambia backed Milingo's removal, but said they were "deeply saddened by this turn of events."
Announcing the excommunication, the Holy See said the public actions of the 76-year-old self-styled faith-healer and exorcist who married briefly in 2001 were "spreading division and confusion among the faithful."
Milingo was excommunicated on Tuesday for ordaining four married men as bishops at a ceremony in Washington.
An excommunicated person is forbidden from receiving the sacraments or sharing in acts of public worship, but Milingo said he continued to celebrate mass and conduct faith healing services.
"Myself, I have never stopped saying Mass. Never. Even this morning I have celebrated Mass," he said.
After his brief marriage, Milingo rejoined the Catholic Church and lived in near seclusion for several years at a convent near Rome before he disappeared in June. He resurfaced in the American capital in July, where he announced formation of a new group, 'Married Priests Now!', to persuade the Vatican to allow priests to marry.
"We do not accept what we call the obligatory celibacy but to give option and to recognise that it is a gift; celibacy is a gift," Milingo said on Wednesday.
The Church's stand had led to a crisis, with the average age of priests at about 74 years, he said. "In 20 years there will be few priests left. Who is going to provide the sacraments and the Eucharist to the people?"
He said many priests forced to leave the priesthood because they had married would be willing to return. "There is a desperate need for priests now and in the future; but we have almost 25,000 married priests in the United States and almost 150,000 worldwide who are not being called to service because of a Mediaeval, Church-imposed regulation that priests be celibate."
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