Vatican kicks out archbishop
26/09/2006 17:15  - (SA)  

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Vatican City - Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the Zambian prelate who angered the Vatican by getting married in 2001, has been excommunicated for again defying the Holy See by installing four married men as bishops, said the Vatican on Tuesday.

The Vatican said Milingo was "automatically excommunicated" under church law for the ordination of the men a few days earlier in Washington. The Archdiocese of Washington said on Sunday that the installations were not valid.

Milingo is in "a condition of irregularity and of progressive, open break with communion with the Church," said the Vatican.

The four men claim affiliation with the breakaway Synod of Old Catholic Churches.

In its announcement of the excommunication, the Vatican accused Milingo of "sowing division and dismay among the faithful".

The 76-year-old Milingo has long had a troubled relationship with the Vatican.

Gained strong following

In 2001, he was married to a South Korean acupuncturist chosen for him by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, in a group wedding ceremony in New York.

Upon appeal from Pope John Paul II a few months later, he renounced that union.

He gained a strong following in a church where he had been stationed near Rome because of his reputation of being an exorcist.

Before his marriage, Catholic officials accused him of promoting African indigenous beliefs by performing mass exorcisms and healing ceremonies.

- AP

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