Controversial Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo was hoodwinked by the Moonies into marrying Maria Sung at a mass wedding officiated by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon in New York last year.
Milingo recently claimed the Unification Church had made his entrance to the sect, and preaching the gospel, conditional on marrying a member.
Arriving from Italy at Lusaka International airport amid tight security, Milingo, however, said he was partly to blame for allowing himself to be lured into the trap and breaking his celibacy vows.
He said his family had advised him against denouncing his vows, but he had explained that as far as he was concerned the marriage was not a private arrangement but a public posture to win more hearts to the Lord.
The 72-year-old clergyman said he later regretted the radical decision he had taken to marry the 44-year-old South Korean doctor — a decision that tarnished the image of the Catholic Church.
“I was given a condition to marry to enable me to reach out to the Moonies in my gospel administration,” he told journalists and an anxious crowd of relatives and Catholic officials at the airport.
Conspicuously missing from the welcoming party was Sung, who was early last week reported to be back in Zambia. She was first in Zambia four months ago to lobby for what she termed the release of her husband from captivity.
She had travelled back to Korea after a series of meetings and public appearances to evoke sympathy.
The Vatican never recognised Milingo’s marriage and threatened to excommunicate the cleric until he divorced Sung. He was sent on retreat to Argentina.
After the divorce Sung went on a hunger strike and demanded to see Milingo, whom she said had been kidnapped and held against his will at an unknown location. At one point she claimed she was carrying his child.
At the news conference in Lusaka Milingo protested that people wanted to take advantage of his human weaknesses to discredit the entire Catholic Church.
The clergyman, who appeared to be in high spirits, told journalists it had not been his intention to marry except that it was a temptation that had presented itself in the course of duty.
“It was not at all an intention to marry but a condition they had given me. They even gave me a field where I would be able to continue preaching. But the condition that I had to get married was not my intention and I told them very clearly I was going to remain Catholic and that’s all,” Milingo said.
He said the controversy about his marriage should now be put to rest because he was a changed man after his one year retreat in Argentina.
“The Maria Sung story is finished and we have nothing to do with her. I thank Reverend Moon (leader of the church) for what his church did for me in arranging the wedding but I have no intentions whatsoever to get in touch with him, because I can be misunderstood,” he saidMilingo said Pope John Paul II never asked him about his failed marriage, but welcomed him back to the Vatican and urged him to carry on with the work of God.
“I was not in conflict with the Catholic Church but with some bishops. I am grateful to the pope, who never discussed anything to do with my marriage affair.”
Milingo has since written a book, The Fish Drawn from the Mud, in which he tries to explain his relationship with Sung and how it ended and talks about his charity works and his healing powers, among other things.