Emmanuel Milingo : Archbishop Milingo's excommunication - News about religious cults and sects

The Vatican's excommunication of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo does not come as a surprise. Even Archbishop Milingo expected his moonie wedding to alter his relationship with the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Milingo's conduct was questionable or unacceptable in a number of respects. He did things that could have had him excommunicated in the early '80s.

Archbishop Milingo has made enormous mistakes and unleashed a process that was self-destructive for Catholicism and for himself. If you start a process in which all of a Church's values begin to be destroyed, that process is very dangerous.

We don't want - nor can we want - divisions within the Catholic Church. We would like to see a united Church supporting the legitimate claims of the people of the Third World and of all mankind.

There are many things that need to be reformed in the Catholic Church. But we don't think moonie weddings by Archbishops is the best way to do it. And we don't think it is right to reform or improve the Catholic Church from outside; nor do we think it is right to promote divisions from outside.

We do think, however, that solidarity with mankind's most deeply felt aspirations for a united Catholic Church is politically better for us, and we sincerely hope that the problems within the Church may be solved rationally.

The Church may be the oldest institution - Buddhism and Hinduism are older but they are not institutions - and it has gone through some very difficult trials - schism and divisions of all kinds. Other Churches - the Orthodox Church, for example - were created as a result of schisms. Then came the reformation, which led to the appearance of many other Churches.
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Now, too, the Church is going through some very difficult trials and must make some important changes.

We agree with the Vatican that Monsignor Milingo had committed a grave error which made it very difficult for him to continue to be considered a bishop of the Catholic Church. How can a Catholic archbishop marry at a public wedding ceremony celebrated by the 'Moon' sect and still continue to consider himself a Catholic bishop?

Yes, we understand that celibacy is a matter that is being debated in the Church today and rational solutions will be found. After all the celibacy has not always been a requirement of Catholic priests, it was only started in the 12th century.

We appreciate that for centuries the European Church, like the European society, was the centre of the world. And the Church grew accustomed to exporting not only its model of the Church but also its theology to the rest of world.
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We are aware that Europe has produced a theology that we call "liberal theology", which has its value. However, like every other theology, it reflects problems of a specific reality - in this case that of Europe. And what were the most important events of the just ended century? The two world wars. This fact has caused all European culture to raise anguishing questions about the value of human beings and the meaning of life. When we look at the philosophy of Heidegger and Sartre; the films of Fellini Bunuel; the paintings of Picasso, and the literature of Camus, Thomas Mann, and James Joyce, we find that all of them try to answer the disturbing question of what value human beings have. And along these lines, in individualistic philosophy, European theology found the means it needed for relating to reality.

Now what is the most important issue even in Africa's history in the just ended century? A war? No. We had local wars but not continental ones. The most important problem or fact in Africa's history is the massive number of poverty-stricken people. Therefore, our problem isn't the philosophical problem of the human being. The anguishing question that we must ask is why, when the world has such advanced technology at its disposal, there is such an overwhelming majority of nonpersons, people without rights or hope, in Africa? Most Africans have no rights. That is, in many cases they live in worse conditions than animals.

These are the questions we would have loved Archbishop Milingo to seek answers to - and not the moonie marriages. This would have a more justifiable cause to be excommunicated for. And we hope Archbishop Milingo's followers in Zambia will appreciate that his was a personal cause which deserves little solidarity. And moreover, he is very happy in his new life.
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