Priests defy Vatican marriage ban
Pastor Dale Morgan
Priests defy Vatican marriage ban*
POSTED: 0342 GMT (1142 HKT), December 10, 2006
WEST NEW YORK, New Jersey (AP) -- An excommunicated Roman Catholic
archbishop continued to defy the Vatican when he installed two married
priests as bishops on Sunday.
In front of a sea of reporters and photographers and several dozen
congregants, Raymond A. Grosswirth of Rochester, New York, and Dominic
Riccio, of the Newark Archdiocese, were installed by Zambian Archbishop
Emmanuel Milingo at the Trinity Reformed Church. The ceremony concluded
a two-day convention of Milingo's advocacy group, Married Priests Now!
In a visible break from tradition, the wives of both men helped their
husbands on with their vestments before each man was anointed.
Milingo, 76, installed four married men as Roman Catholic bishops in
September, including Peter Paul Brennan of New York and Patrick Trujillo
of Newark. Milingo was later excommunicated by the Vatican, and Pope
Benedict XVI followed that decision by convening a summit that
reaffirmed mandatory celibacy for clergy.
Members of Milingo's group believe that reinstating priests who are
married would help ease a shortage of priests. According to the Center
for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the
number of priests has dropped from 58,600 in 1965 to 41,790 this year.
Milingo has called celibacy "outdated" and was married in 2001 to a
Korean acupuncturist chosen for him by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a mass
wedding performed by Moon's Unification Church.
Milingo's ties to Moon, whose doctrines are considered beyond the bounds
of traditional Christianity, have caused consternation in Catholic
circles. Moon's American Clergy Leadership Conference paid for much of
Milingo's conference this weekend.