Excommunicated Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo said the Catholic Church should not fear accepting married men into the priesthood."There is no contradiction between marriage and priesthood," he told reporters at a Jan. 17 press conference unveiling a new book on his life.
"It is not right the church imposes celibacy" on its priests, he said.
"God did not create celibacy because in the beginning there were two -- a husband and wife," Adam and Eve, said the archbishop.
"God wanted another person to be by Adam's side," he added.
The former Zambian archbishop made his remarks after presenting "Confessions of an Excommunicated Man," his book-length interview with Italian journalist Raffaella Rosa.
The 172-page paperback is currently available only in Italian through Koine, an Italian publishing house. Rosa has said that the publishers have been looking at options for translations and foreign publishers for the book.
Accompanied his wife, Maria Sung, and the book's author, Archbishop Milingo told his audience his mission was to help married priests "claim our rights. We are priests forever" and should not be prevented from serving the pastoral needs of the Catholic faithful.
"We want (the Vatican) to recognize our marriages do not destroy the priesthood; that's all," he said.
Archbishop Milingo, who was married in a Unification Church ceremony in 2001, was excommunicated by the Vatican in September 2006 for illicitly ordaining married men. The Unification Church is known now as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
The archbishop founded the U.S.-based Married Priests Now! movement, which advocates that the Catholic Church allow married priests in active ministry. Under church law, Latin-rite Catholic priests must remain unmarried and are bound to celibacy.
The archbishop claims there are 150,000 married priests around the world, with some 25,000 in the United States alone.
He said he is a Catholic and does not consider himself outside the church. His Married Priests Now! movement is not an attempt at schism, he said, adding, "We don't want another church."
In December 2006, three months after Archbishop Milingo illicitly ordained four married men as bishops in the United States, he illicitly ordained two married American men as priests.
The archbishop said that when married men who wish to become priests "hear the word 'Vatican' they tremble."
Instead of being ordained publicly, "they burrow and hide underground," he said.
The book's creator said she wanted to let the world know "who Milingo really is."
She said the things said about him in the media over the years have been false, distorted or half-truths.
Rosa said she wanted to cover his life "differently -- showing his new mission as an apostle of married priests."
In the book -- which is presented mostly in interview format -- Archbishop Milingo explains the process that led him from thinking priests who married were weak to believing the church should make celibacy an option for priests.
He talks of incidents of racism, even death threats, while living in Rome and of the troubles he encountered with unnamed members of the Roman Curia and other church officials.
The archbishop explains how Pope John Paul II encouraged him to continue preaching and further develop his "charismatic gift" of spiritual and physical healings.
In the book, he says he loves the church and thinks of it as a mother, but he says the church administration "has a head, but no heart."
"Excommunications, interdictions, suspensions and other measures are shameful crimes," he says in the book.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce