All:
This saga in the Catholic Church is really heartbreaking. Please read this story and draw your own conclusions: Vatican officials block all communication between His Grace and Mrs. Milingo. Read Mrs. Maria Milingo's plea to Vatican officials. I think that the pope should get his holy pain in the ass out of the business of this African Archbishop and his wife, Mrs. Maria Milingo. The Archbishop is married and had been living as man and wife with his Korean born wife. The Catholic Church should not be so afraid of schisms in Catholicism that it would abduct an African archbishop and block his wife from speaking to him. If the Catholic Church must continue to hold on to unrealistic doctrines, including those that require celibacy from an increasingly sex-hungry clergy, then the Catholic Church must find a better way to maintain those doctrines without resorting to abductions. The pope should be ashamed of himself for holding this man apparently against his will. Milingo should be allowed to see his wife.

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The Pope and the Vatican should not be in the business of orchestrating divorce. I thought the Catholic Church was opposed to divorces. The Vatican should drop this Papal fiction that the Archbishop’s marriage to his wife is an “ecclesiastically” invalid marriage. It is time for the Catholic Church to drop some of these archaic doctrines that even the pope and his bishops cannot observe.

And for those who do not know it, the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize any marriage outside of the church as binding on it. Nearer home also, that's how come the Ikemba Nnewi could wed Bianca in the Catholic Church. And for those who do not know it also, while its difficult to have marriages annulled in the Catholic Church (requiring the services of Canon lawyers, the intervention of the Holy See, etc.), it's not impossible (as has been shown by Msgr. Duru's multiple marriages in the Church, himself a canon lawyer). Grounds for annulling marriages include non-consummation (ranging from inability to maintain an erection to penetration). You may not know it also but lying about your age is sufficient grounds to have a marriage annulled! And talking about age and consummation, how old is this cleric?

And please, quit bashing the Catholic Church. What you don't understand, leave alone. That's called modesty as we cannot pretend to know it all.

The difficulties with the Ojukwu example that Brother Anu Nti gave are that 1) Ojukwu is not a priest and lower standards therefore do apply to him on the question of what constitutes facially tolerable religious morality, and 2) it tends to prescribe a way out to erring and decadent Catholics (Pulpit and Pew) who wish to flout the teachings of Catholicism and still be able to find their way back to the fold. It suggests that all that one needs do is take some time off from their Catholic faith, join another denomination of the Christian faith, or leave Christianity altogether. Once temporarily out of the Catholic Church, one could enjoy all the sins and proscribed behaviors forbidden to a practicing Catholic, e.g. polygamy, homosexuality, adultery, divorce and re-marriage, etc. Then, when you have satiated yourself, you simply return to the Catholic fold. In the case of this archbishop, you simply “renounce” your marriage.

It is also bothersome because the substitution of the term “renounce” for the more familiar term “divorce” provides yet another escape route for those clerics who lack the will to live up to their vows. When a prodigal catholic living under US law decides to return to the Church, would s/he be able to simply renounce the marriage s/he contracted while she was temporarily away from the Church? Could she be remarried by the Catholic Church without the benefit of a proper divorce as required by the law of the jurisdiction in which s/he lives? In the US, every person that is going to get married must show proof that all previous marriage(s) had been legally ended in divorce or annulment. Failing that, a marriage license will be denied and the existing marriage would remain in force. Archbishops of lesser virtue are not exempt from this law.

As I mentioned earlier, the standards are far lower for laypersons, such as Ojukwu. Like other laypersons, Ojukwu did not take the priestly vows prescribed for archbishops among others. Laypersons have to answer only to God. The clergy have to answer to man and God. It is upon the basis of that vow that these men were elevated in the first place. When they can no longer keep their vow, they should leave their position.

Archbishop Milingo should keep his fingers crossed and hope that Mrs. Milingo does not get herself a good lawyer and drag him to divorce court in the US, where the two were married. I imagine that the publicity such a suit would generate would lead the Holy See to reconsider his overrated concerns about schisms. Ahu Ihe ka ubi, e’ree oba.