Married priest leaves wife to return to the church

Publicity stunt takes back seat to sacred vows of Catholic priest

What do you get when you mix a mass wedding, a Bishop from Zambia, a radical religious leader named Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and a South Korean doctor? Answer - a religious mess.

The whole thing started when Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo decided that the Catholic Church's requirements about being celibate and single was just not for him. On May 27 Milingo and Maria Sung were married in a New York mass wedding ceremony officiated by Sun Myung Moon - the leader of the Unification Church.

Needless to say the Vatican did not like the fact that an Archbishop was flaunting behavior that was completely contrary to Church doctrine. Making matters worse were rumors of pregnancy and the fact that Sun Myung Moon was capitalizing on the fact that he wed a Catholic priest to a doctor during one of his sham ceremonies. It is not know whether The Vatican summoned Milingo or if he simply turned up, but the Archbishop was at the Vatican last week doing a lot of dancing before the man that is presumed to be Christ's representative on earth.

The good Archbishop of Zambia has been in trouble with the headquarters of his faith before. Milingo is a star in his native Zambia where he performs colorful exorcisms and healing ceremonies, contrary to the wishes of the Vatican. So when this renegade preacher ran off and got married, well lets just say a potentially pregnant wife and a marriage performed by a man who believes he is Christ was too much for the Vatican to ignore.

On Tuesday, the Vatican released a letter written by Milingo where he told the Pope that he was recommitting his life "in the Catholic church with all my heart, renouncing my living together with Maria Sung and my relationship with the Rev. Moon and the Family Federation for World Peace." In short - marriage is over and the Archbishop has returned to the flock.

In a perfect world, that is where the story would end. Of course the movie version of this adventure into marital bliss would show the former wife of Milingo sitting in a room crying over her loss. Maybe there would even be a Shakespearean ending where she downs some poison or puts a dagger through her heart, but not in this story. In true political form, Sung decided to go on a hunger strike because the Reverend Moon convinced her that her new husband was being held captive by the Vatican. Sung told reporters, "I am convinced he is a prisoner."

Before her hunger strike Sung dropped the bombshell that she could potentially be pregnant, but she steadfastly refused to take a pregnancy test until the Vatican "produced" her husband. Late last week she took the test and it was determined that she is not pregnant. The Vatican has not disclosed Milingo's whereabouts, saying only that he is on a spiritual retreat and that he should be left alone to pray.

The Archbishop has said that celibacy is poisoning the priesthood and that God's blessings were meant to be given through the family, regardless of whether or not a man was a priest or not. For Sung and Milingo, that was not meant to be, "The great hope of Monsignor Milingo and I was that God would have blessed us with a child, I'm sad he has not done so yet." Apparently she is hoping for some divine intervention in having a child, since her husband has returned to the Church.

This whole affair should have been a mere blip on the radar screens of news organizations, but it turned out to be full of exactly what keeps people tuned into the 24 hour news channels. We had sex, religion, religious kooks, and protests - nothing could be better for television than that, but one thing is still unclear. If Milingo was such a believer of Moon and if he didn't like the way the Catholic Church was being run, why did he not simply turn in his priestly collar and move to New York to be part of the fringe church run by Moon? He could have spared his Church a lot of embarrassment and a woman that he purports to love a lot of anguish.

I've never understood people who want to be part of organizations that hold the opposite views that they do. Gays demanding to be part of the Boy Scouts, women demanding to be part of traditionally male sports teams, and priests who take a vow to the Church then demand that the Church change to accommodate them. I think it is good advice to join groups that share your views and to stop trying to change centuries old traditions to suit your selfish desires of the flesh.