Vatican City | Wednesday
A ZAMBIAN archbishop whose marriage scandalized the Vatican is giving up his wife and returning to the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
It said Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo was also breaking his relationship with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. He was married in a mass Moon ceremony on May 27 in New York.
The Vatican released a brief letter it said Milingo wrote on Saturday to Pope John Paul II announcing the decision.
The Vatican released it a few hours after his wife announced the start of a hunger strike, vowing to starve herself until she is allowed to see her husband, said to be on retreat to reflect on his marriage that outraged the Vatican.
The letter said Milingo 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.”
“I am your humble and obedient servant,” the letter to the pope said.
Sung said she began fasting at midnight to force Vatican officials to reunite her with her husband. She said she would renounce food “until he is free to meet me or until I die.”
Officials travelling with her could not be reached immediately for comment.
Sung says she has been kept apart from her husband since they came together to the Vatican and Milingo met with the pope last week to discuss his reasons for the marriage.
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.
Sung, a 43-year-old South Korean doctor, suggested Monday that she may be pregnant. But she said she was not worried about possible health risks from her fast and will only drink water.
Milingo (71) had been threatened with excommunication for marrying Sung. Milingo has said priests need not be celibate and that God’s blessings were meant to be given through the family. – AFP