Milingo: “Many…Catholic married priests…are in the Unification Movement”

From the National Catholic Reporter in July:

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo says he has no intention of launching a new sect in Africa funded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon as a rival to Roman Catholicism…

…”We have no ambition at all, in any way, to do anything of that kind,” Milingo said.

Milingo has since set up “Married Priests Now!”, an advocacy group with 120 couples as members. Monday’s Boston Herald had an article on this new organisation:

Some American advocates for married priests have kept their distance from Milingo, concerned about his ties with Moon’s Unification Church. The Rev. Dairo Ferrabolli of Brazil, a married priest working with the archbishop, vehemently denied an ongoing link between Milingo and Moon.

“He got his wife and now it’s over,” Ferrabolli said Sunday.

But in a packet of statements the archbishop distributed to the conference participants, he said that he traveled to Korea this year “to join the many Catholics and Catholic married priests who are in the Unification movement.”

The ever-alert John Gorenfeld adds a bit more to that:

…The Web site of Married Priests Now (www.marriedpriestsnow.org) is under construction. But the domain is registered to one David Payer, the Rev. Moon’s Web master — and a GOP candidate for the legislature in Iowa!

That website is password protected, but Gorenfeld also provides a link to a second site belonging to the group, which can be seen here.

Married Priests Now! has just held a convocation, the details of which are on a third site. The names of those giving the welcome remarks at the opening of the event are of interest:

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo

Archbishop George Stallings

Rev. Michael Jenkins

Rev. Dr. C. S. Yang

Michael Jenkins is a well-known Unificationist; CS Yang’s praise for the True Parents is in evidence here.

One guest, though, makes a interesting contrast: Peter Manseau of Killing the Buddha fame is listed as due to speak on the subject being the son of a priest and a nun.