c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican on Tuesday (Sept. 26) announced the excommunication of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the African cleric who scandalized the Catholic Church by marrying in 2001, as a penalty for consecrating a group of married men as bishops.

A statement from the Holy See press office cited church law that regards the naming of bishops without papal approval as a schismatic act that results in a self-imposed excommunication for those participating in the consecration.

“For this public act Archbishop Milingo and the four consecrated (bishops) have incurred excommunication latae sententiae,” the statement said, using the Latin term for “automatic excommunication.”

The Vatican said the four married men that Milingo consecrated during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Sunday were also excommunicated. The Archdiocese of Washington has said the ceremonies will not be recognized.

The move to strip Milingo of his affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church marks the latest chapter in the African cleric’s on-again-off-again relationship with the Vatican.

Milingo resigned as head of the archdiocese of Lusaka, Zambia, in 1982 after the Vatican challenged his endorsement of faith-healing and exorcism. In 2001, Milingo bucked the church’s celibacy requirement and married a South Korean woman in a ceremony conducted by the Unification Church.

Milingo’s marriage to Maria Sung, an acupuncturist, scandalized the Vatican, prompting a personal appeal from the late Pope John Paul II. Milingo avoided excommunication by renouncing the union and returning to the fold. Five years ago, he returned to Rome and was assigned to a convent on the outskirts of the city.

In May, however, the 76-year-old cleric went missing from the convent. A month later, he turned up at a press conference in Washington calling on the Vatican to drop the priesthood’s celibacy requirement.

The statement said Pope Benedict XVI had “patiently” followed Milingo’s recent actions, which marked “a state of irregularity” and “a progressive, open break in communion with the Church.”

“Representatives at various levels of the church tried in vain to contact Archbishop Milingo, to dissuade him from going ahead with scandal-provoking actions,” the Vatican noted in Tuesday’s statement, accusing the cleric of “spreading division” within the church.

The Associated Press named the four men ordained as George Stallings of Washington, Peter Paul Brennan of New York, Patrick Trujillo of Newark, N.J., and Joseph Gouthro of Las Vegas.

Stallings, pastor of Washington’s Imani Temple, ÃÂ?MDULÃÂ?broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1989 and was excommunicated a year later. He also married a member of the Unification Church in 2001.

Stallings could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but told the Associated Press that the Vatican viewed Milingo as a threat because “he could ordain other priests, other bishops.”

“They excommunicated me (in 1990) and I rose from the dead, I guess, and came back to haunt them,” Stallings said, adding that the Vatican threatened Milingo that he was “going to hell” if he did not recant.

_ Jason Kane contributed to this report.

KRE/PH END MEICHTRY