The bizarre affair of Archbishop Milingo

by Editor · June 13, 2001

The bizarre wedding of Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo in a Moonie ceremony will have bemused Catholics. Neither Archbishop Milingo nor the Vatican has emerged with much credit from this affair.

One wonders why the archbishop opted to alienate himself from the Church he professes to love passionately by joining the Moonie sect, whose entire being is so at variance with the Catholic Church.

He has intimated that the sect�s founder, the Rev Sun Myung Moon, offered him the opportunity to bring to a close his lengthy struggle with the Church hierarchy at a vulnerable time. If so, Archbishop Milingo might well have been used: the archbishop�s apostasy has presented Moon�s Unification Church with a publicity coup likely to lend the much-reviled sect a greater measure of credibility.

Archbishop Milingo�s troubles with the Vatican go back almost 20 years, when Rome removed him as archbishop of Lusaka on the basis of allegations financial and pastoral misconduct, later proved to be unfounded. Transferred to Rome in 1983, Archbishop Milingo�s unorthodox ministry (which included faith healing and exorcism ceremonies) drew an ardent following in Italy� and the mistrust of many Church leaders across the ideological spectrum.

Warranted though the Church�s misgivings regarding the archbishop�s ministry might have been, the Vatican in its dealings with him rarely gave an impression of acting with much Christian magnanimity.

The sad truth is that Archbishop Milingo is by no means the only Church figure to complain of poor treatment at the hands of the Vatican in recent times. Still fresh in our memory is the lament of Belgian theologian Fr Jacques Dupuis�not a maverick by any stretch of the imagination�at the treatment he experienced from the Congregation for Doctrine. Alas, Fr Dupuis� account of curial bullying is echoed by many who have done battle with the Vatican.

It goes without saying that the curia is doing its difficult job of safeguarding the doctrines and discipline of the Catholic Church with sincerity. However, when that task is performed at the cost of fellow Catholics� loyalty, dignity and (at least in Fr Dupuis� case) physical well-being, the curia risks being seen as compromising the very essence of the Church: the saving love of Jesus Christ.