Press Statement
The Episcopal Conference of the
Married Priests Now! Prelature
Washington DC
November 13, 2006

The Episcopal Conference of the Married Priests Now! Prelature wishes to thank the Zambian Episcopal Conference for alerting the people of Zambia to expect the arrival of the Emeritus Metropolitan Archbishop of Lusaka. It is so wonderful that you have advertised his missionary activities and his healing ministry. Our Prelature enthusiastically supports the apostolic ministry of Archbishop Milingo and we know that he is Catholic in his faith, his heart and his soul. Any service he performs will be in and of the Catholic Faith and will bring healing to the people.

The nature of the Catholic Church is to be toward expansion, not towards narrow retraction. The Church embraces everyone, it does not exclude. The Church teaches love, it does not teach hate or shunning. Why does the Zambian Episcopal Conference impose sanctions and restrictions on the Apostolate of Archbishop Milingo and cause him to be shunned? St. Paul consecrated many bishops and instructed them to lead the communities he had founded. Archbishop Milingo followed the example of St. Paul and did a good thing in consecrating married men as bishops.

Excommunication is a tool to do evil and to inflict pain. It has no place in civilized society and especially none in the community of the Church of Jesus Christ. An excommunication caused the Great Schism between the East and the West and you still have not learned its perfidious uselessness. You think you are doing the Orthodox a favor by calling them “Our Separated Brethren,” but the words are an oxymoron and ridicule each other. The word “excommunication” ought to be cancelled from ecclesial language. Excommunication shows the weakness of the church and its inability to solve problems. Dear Brothers, put Jesus and his Gospel before canon law and its excommunications.

The decision and the press statement of the Zambian Episcopal Conference destroys the unity of the Church. For love of the people of Zambia and of all Africa, Archbishop Milingo will not exclude anyone who will come to his healing services. If any of those who come to his service are then persecuted by the Catholic Church in Zambia, it will be a sign that the Catholic Church is not Catholic; and a sign that it is not the true church of Jesus who died praying for unity, not division. Jesus left us the law of love, not hatred. Archbishop Milingo is Catholic in faith and tradition and has not changed any Catholic doctrine. He is only pleading for optional celibacy. We have only one goal and that is to restore the married priesthood of the Holy Scriptures to our Church. Jesus chose married priests first.

http://www.orgsites.com/ny/married-priests-now/

Most Reverend Emmanuel Milingo
Archbishop
President of the Episcopal Conference of
The Married Priests Now! Prelature

Archbishop Peter P. Brennan
Archbishop Joseph J. Gouthro
Archbishop George A. Stallings
Archbishop Patrick E. Trujillo

Contact: Most Rev. Peter Brennan
(516) 485 0616
Ddamdg@aol.com
151 Regent Place, West Hempstead, NY 11552 USA

Most Reverend Emmanuel Milingo
(202) 360 2992

For Immediate Release -- November 12, 2006


Press Statement
7th November 2006
Lusaka, Zambia

The Zambia Episcopal Conference wishes to once again clarify the status of the former Archbishop of Lusaka, Emmanuel Milingo, in the light of media reports that he is planning to come back to Zambia in the near future.

We reiterate that the former Archbishop has been excommunicated. Excommunication means that he is no longer part of the Catholic Church. By his own actions, he has knowingly and willingly cut himself off from the Catholic Church. He therefore cannot preside over any religious function in the name of the Catholic Church.

If indeed he wants to come back to Zambia, it is within his rights to return to his homeland. However, we urge our Catholic faithful to be aware that if he holds religious functions, then those ceremonies will be done outside the Catholic Church. Therefore they are not Catholic services.

Signed:

Most Rev. Telesphore G. Mpundu
Archbishop of Lusaka
President . Zambia Episcopal Conference