Milingo's "wife" not pregnant

ROME, Aug 17, 01 (CWNews.com) - The woman who married Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo in a Unification Church mass wedding in May is not pregnant as she intimated earlier this week, a Unification Church spokesman said on Friday.

"Maria Sung is not pregnant," a church spokesman said shortly after Sung, a 43-year-old acupuncturist, had taken a pregnancy test. Sung told a news conference that she was disappointed, but held out hope that Milingo would return to her and they could have a child in the future.

Milingo married Sung, extolled Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and rejected the Catholic Church's teachings on priestly celibacy in May, eliciting a warning from the Vatican that he was in danger of excommunication. Last week, the archbishop traveled to Rome for a private meeting with Pope John Paul II, and afterwards, entered a period of reflection and retreat, releasing a letter that said he rejected his illicit actions.

Sung claims that Milingo is being held against his will and may even have been drugged by the Vatican. She said on Tuesday that she was beginning a hunger strike that would last until her death or until she saw her husband.