FORMER Archbishop of Lusaka, Emmanuel Milingo has condemned the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC)'s boycott of the National Constitutional Conference (NCC).Archbishop Milingo has since advised the Catholic bishops not to divide the Church and the nation over the matter.
And a Catholic priest, Father Charles Chilinda said yesterday that Archbishop Milingo had an agenda with the Unification Church and should stop insisting that he was still a Catholic.
Speaking during a special interview on Muvi Television on Monday evening, Archbishop Milingo said it was not fair for the Church to withdraw from the NCC without a proper reason.
"The Constitution should be made by everyone because it affects everyone. How will ZEC represent the community if they are not participating in the NCC? The question that everyone should ask now is will ZEC obey the Constitution?" he asked.
The 77-year-old prelate, who was excommunicated in 2006, warned that religion could play a very divisive role.
He cited historical incidents when people killed each other for holding different religious opinions.
On his excommunication, Archbishop Milingo said the Catholic bishops in Zambia should realise that attacking him publicly would only divide the people.
"The way ZEC is doing things is surprising. Are you telling me they cannot pray for me? These are my blood brothers. You cannot teach people hatred without deeply reflecting on the love of Jesus," he said.
He said he was in the country to pray for the sick and was happy that many people still trusted him despite the many attacks he had received since he made his decision to marry.
The prelate dismissed fears that he was forming his own church of married priests and was quick to reiterate that he was still a Catholic and was not excommunicated.
He said he still loved Pope Benedict and other leaders of the Catholic Church but stated that for any one to say he was excommunicated was like killing someone spiritually.
"I will die a Catholic. I am Catholic from head to toe. We are the original Catholics. Saint Peter who is the first Pope married, so were the first priests. You know we were cheated that we cannot marry as priests but now we know we can," he said.
Archbishop Milingo revealed that he started thinking about marriage around 1995 when he attended South Korean evangelist, Sun Myung Moon's meetings where he discovered that marriage was beautiful.
Father Chilinda of Lusaka's St Ignitius Parish, said the former Archbishop of Lusaka actually excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church when he ordained four married men as priests without papal authority.
Fr Chilinda said on a live ZNBC-TV interview that Archbishop Milingo's healing powers were a gift from God.
He wished him well as he went about praying for the sick although he was no longer in communion with the Catholic Church.
"The former archbishop has an agenda with the Moonies and should choose between them and the Catholic Church. One cannot be both a Moonie and a Catholic," Fr Chilinda said.
The Vatican excommunicated the 77-year-old archbishop in 2006 when, in a blaze of publicity in Washington, he ordained four married men as priests as part of his group 'Married Priests Now'.
He first stunned the Vatican when he attended a mass wedding in a tuxedo and kissed his white-gowned wife for the cameras in a ceremony in a hotel.
Archbishop Milingo later left Maria Sung, rejoined the Church and went into seclusion for a year of rehabilitation in South America before he returned to Italy and moved into a convent near Rome.
But in 2006, he again went missing from the convent, turned up in Washington with Sung, and has been criticising the Vatican over its celibacy rule ever since.
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