WorldTies: A Marriage Made in Heaven?
Damian J. Anderson
This is a truly remarkable article from the Washington Post both about
the Catholic Church, and married priests and Unificationism. I have
rarely seen an article written in the mainstream liberal press which
is so sympathetic to faith in general, and to the Unificationist faith
in particular. So I would like to thank the author Peter Manseau, who
is himself the son of a married priest and his wife. For the author
who is reading this, I am posting this article to two mailing lists of
Unificationists and their friends which total about 2700 subscribers,
and thank you for a thoughtful sincere article. We as Unificationists
rarely receive such even handed favorable coverage from the press.
Sincerely,
Damian Anderson
Webmaster
www.Unification.net
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030601574_pf.html
A Marriage Made in Heaven?
When Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo rejoined the wife chosen for him by
the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Catholic Church excommunicated him. But
Milingo says it's all part of a divine plan.
By Peter Manseau
Sunday, March 11, 2007; W12
ONE EVENING JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, in a modest, two-bedroom apartment
on 16th Street NW, the most controversial clergyman in the recent
history of the Roman Catholic Church took a moment to sing me a song.
Emmanuel Milingo, 76, the former archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, popped
a cassette into his stereo and smiled as words in Chewa, the language
of his youth, filled the living room. A soft murmur kept the rhythm
while two interwoven strains chased each other, catching up, then
pulling apart."It is my own composition," Milingo said. "Do you hear?
Listen: It is my voice, three times."
His hands and chin rising and falling to slightly different tempos, he
swayed where he stood, dressed entirely in priestly black. His dark
socks tapped on the beige carpet. A heavy pectoral cross clacked like
a metronome against the buttons of his suit coat; its silver chain
twinkled against his Roman collar.
"Music is too strong as a passion for me," he said as the tape played
on. "I do not allow myself to dwell too much on it, because it is so
strong."
His other passion, the one I had come to speak to him about, is his
church. On that, he does allow himself to dwell, much to the Vatican's
chagrin. Not long after moving to Washington from Rome last summer, he
was excommunicated for repeatedly and publicly defying the orders of
his ecclesiastic superiors. He is living now as a kind of religious
refugee.
Nonetheless, he says he has kept the faith.
"I am Catholic from head to foot," Milingo assured me.
He had arranged one of the small rooms in his new apartment as a
makeshift chapel, praying there each morning before the sun lighted up
his building's view of Rock Creek Park. Pictures of his beloved
spiritual protector, Pope John Paul II, hung on nearly every wall.
The only face that appeared as many times throughout the home was the
grinning countenance of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, self-proclaimed
messiah and founder of the Unification Church. According to Milingo,
these belong to the woman who is part symptom and part cause of his
excommunication: Maria Sung, a South Korean acupuncturist chosen as
his bride by Moon. They have been married for five years, though they
have lived together for only the last few months.
With his wife -- a short, sunny woman dressed in slippers and a no-
nonsense sweat suit -- looking on from across the room, Milingo began
singing in harmony with one of the musical strains and offering an
interpretation after each line. His hands moved through the air
deliberately, caressing the words of his hymn.
"Where did Jesus Christ come from?" he sang. "They say He came from
the heavens. Where did Jesus Christ come from? Let us go and see."
Small in stature, plump with age, with a wide forehead and sparse
white hair over his gold-rimmed glasses, he was a most unlikely
performer. Yet the grin he wore belonged to a man who clearly loved
having an audience, whoever it might be.
FIVE YEARS BEFORE, IN MAY OF 2001, Archbishop Milingo made headlines
around the world when he announced that he had broken his vow of
celibacy by getting married. Marriage for a man in Milingo's position
-- a well-known septuagenarian Roman Catholic prelate -- would have
raised eyebrows under any circumstances; that he had wed a 43-year-old
woman selected by Moon's Unification Church, regarded by critics as a
mind-controlling cult, made the nuptials a global media event.
Milingo had not been the sort of progressive cleric one might expect
to agitate for change in one of the church's most distinctive
disciplines. In fact, until then he had seemed a Catholic from the
earliest days of the church's history, a Latin-preferring
traditionalist who had come to prominence in Africa as an exorcist and
faith healer.
Yet somehow, this theologically conservative priest wound up taking
part in a classic Unification wedding: 62 couples dressed in identical
tuxedos and bridal gowns, all standing before Moon as he gave his
blessing and invoked three cheers of " Ok Mansei!" a Korean
valediction by which all participants wished "ten thousand years of
victory" to Moon as the "True Father" of humanity.
Though the wedding had taken place in New York, its most immediate
impact was felt in Italy, where Milingo's renown was such that he had
recorded two popular albums of Zambian songs, and had even seen the
story of his life turned into a cartoon. The Italian media speculated
that Milingo had been brainwashed or otherwise coerced into marriage.
The Vatican's official exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, suggested
that Moon's followers had pursued his former colleague "relentlessly."
>From there, the suspicions snowballed: The emergence of a rogue
clergyman armed with the power to ordain new bishops and priests of
his choosing brought whispers of a possible schism, a split among the
faithful in the mold of the Reformation. Some feared that Milingo
intended to start a breakaway church in Africa, with himself as
spiritual leader and Moon as his string-pulling financier. On a
continent where the number of Catholics has almost tripled in the last
30 years -- as numbers elsewhere have plunged -- such a move by one of
its most popular native sons might prove disastrous, from the
Vatican's perspective.
Milingo denied that he had any such ambition but gave ample evidence
that he had wandered far from the only church he had ever known. In
binding the Catholic priesthood to the sacrament of marriage, "we will
strengthen and renew the two parts, while at the same time building a
greater and stronger whole," Milingo wrote in a July 2001 response to
the Catholic Church's admonitions. "This is what God is asking."
Milingo spoke of his marriage as divinely inspired and, asked at a
news conference about Moon's theology, went so far as to propose that
Jesus had been "killed before He was able to carry out His plans" -- a
suggestion that contravenes the central Christian tenet of Christ's
"perfect sacrifice," while neatly fitting Moon's assertion that he is
on Earth to finish Jesus's work.
But Milingo's disobedience apparently could not withstand a direct
plea from the pope. When John Paul II asked him, "in the name of
Jesus," to come back to the church, that's what he did, leaving his
wife 10 weeks after their wedding. Even Maria Sung's 16-day hunger
strike couldn't get Milingo back.
Until, that is, last June, about five years later, when Milingo
disappeared from Italy. His whereabouts remained unknown long enough
that the Zambian government asked the Vatican to find him. In July, he
reemerged, in typical attention-grabbing fashion, at the National
Press Club in Washington. Not only had he returned to his wife, he
announced, but he would now begin a mission to remove the requirement
of celibacy from the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Some took this as a sign that he had been brainwashed, after all; that
the rumors of Milingo returning to Africa as the Unification Church's
puppet pope were true. And Milingo only fed that speculation when, in
September, he consecrated four married men as bishops -- an act which,
according to the Vatican, brought him automatic excommunication.
"Nonsense," Milingo says. "I do not believe in excommunication." He
gave his mission a name -- Married Priests Now -- and acknowledged
assistance from Moon. However, Milingo said, it was not Moon who had
persuaded him to again take up challenging the celibacy of priests as
the rule of his church.
"Jesus said to me, 'You are timid,'" he told me later. " 'You are
timid to have begun this only to walk away.'"
As is often the case with people who say they receive direct messages
from the divine, the whole story is in fact a bit more complicated
than that.
IT'S NO SMALL THING TO MARRY for the first time in your eighth decade.
"Yes," Milingo said eagerly when I asked if he felt surprised to have
a wife so late in life. "For me, it certainly had always been
considered dangerous to be familiar with a woman. So there were quite
a lot of apprehensions."
Sung moved in and out of the room as we spoke. Like Milingo, she had
been a transplant to Italy, where she'd had a flourishing acupuncture
practice. They spoke Italian together, except when there was an
American in the room. Sung's English is a work in progress.
Her other work has ceased, however. When I visited, an acupuncture
table stood largely unused in the corner of the living room. Does she
still see patients?
"No time," she said. "No license. Now, I treat only archbishop. I
treat him here," she said, directing a hand toward his head. She
couldn't help smiling as she added, "He now have more hair."
"Masculine pride becomes very strong after 70 years," Milingo said.
The archbishop seemed bemused by his newfound domesticity. He let out
a hooting laugh, as if all at once he had come to understand the punch
line of every marriage joke he'd ever heard. "My horns," he said,
"have been cut a bit."
He'd been cut short in other ways, as well. When he was a member of
the vast Vatican bureaucracy, Milingo received a salary of 5,000 euros
a month, about $80,000 a year. Excommunication has meant a loss of
livelihood, pension, health care -- everything -- leaving him now to
depend on Moon. When Milingo left his church-provided residence in
Zagarolo, just southeast of Rome, a priest he had taught the art of
exorcism purified the house with holy water and salt, then burned the
clothes Milingo had left behind.
Of course, all Milingo had owned had come from the church to begin
with, even his name. Sixty-four years ago, he was not called Emmanuel.
That name came later, at the school of the Missionaries of Our Lady of
Africa in the provincial capital, Chipata. It was there that he
learned to read and discovered that his given name, Lotte, came heavy
with scandal. He spelled it differently than it appeared in the Bible,
but the sound was the same: Lot, the man who had escaped Sodom only
with the help of the angels; a man once called righteous who later did
unspeakable things.
An adolescent Milingo declared that he no longer wanted to be called
Lotte. Instead, he would be called Emmanuel, the name that means "God
is with us," the name by which Jesus is known in heaven.
>From then on, a new life began. Lotte Milingo had been an illiterate
cattle boy from the Eastern Province; Emmanuel learned mathematics,
geography, even etiquette. Lotte had enrolled after tagging along with
two other local boys and was unaware that he had entered a preparatory
school for seminary. Emmanuel committed the liturgy to memory and was
eager to be ordained.
"My becoming a priest was not at all willed," Milingo told me. "It was
as accidental as all this."
Yet his early career in the church makes little sense except as an act
of sustained intention. After his ordination in 1958, Milingo was sent
by his diocese to Rome and then to Dublin to complete degrees in
sociology and education. After a short time back in his home parish,
he was sent away again, this time to study radio and television
production. By the time he returned to Zambia in 1963, he was fluent
in Italian and English and was ready to begin a radio ministry, which
soon made him one of the best-known men in the country.
"I would go out into the field to record sounds," Milingo said,
describing his radio work. "If there was an auto accident I wished to
speak about, I would go someplace to find a loud bang. If I spoke of a
funeral, I would go to a graveside to record the weeping. That was why
the show was popular: the sounds. They make everything come alive."
With an increasingly high profile that made him well-suited for
leadership, he became one the youngest bishops in the Catholic Church
at age 39, consecrated by Pope Paul VI. Such an early, illustrious
start in the hierarchy might have led to a long, trouble-free career.
John Paul II, for example, also became a bishop before his 40th
birthday. But then something happened that caused Milingo to change
focus.
"On November 1, 1973, I received a message from God," he said. That
night, while sitting in bed reading, he felt a shadow enter the room
and spread over him. And then the shadow spoke. "Go and preach the
Gospel," it intoned.
To Milingo, this meant he must preach in the language of the land
where God had put him. He began incorporating the music of his people
into his liturgies. He allowed drums into the sanctuary, drawing
criticism that he was "Africanizing" the ancient rituals of the Roman
Catholic Church.
But that was only the beginning. When his parishioners complained to
him of ailments caused by evil spirits, he decided that preaching in
an African style was not enough. He must cast out demons the same way.
Taking the pulpit in his cathedral, Milingo announced that though he
was a Catholic bishop, he had powers over malignant entities of all
traditions. Unlike the European missionaries who still made up the
majority of priests in Zambia, he knew the names by which his people
identified their demons, not just mshawe but nzila, vibanda and
nigulu, all distinct and inhabiting different regions of the country.
"If anyone suffers from these diseases," he said, "let them come
forward, and we will try to help."
Soon hundreds, sometimes thousands, attended Milingo's exorcism and
healing sessions. The sick and the crippled crowded the archbishop's
residence in Lusaka. He received letters from people who said spirits
had made them unemployed or impotent. Milingo knew the guilty demons
sometimes had other names, such as alcoholism or venereal disease, but
no matter. He prayed for anyone in need.
As with his radio show, Milingo didn't shy away from spectacle: He
became known for his singing and shouting, tilting his head back and
unleashing streams of incomprehensible language so that he seemed the
one possessed.
When word of Milingo's popularity spread among the more orthodox
bishops, they were not pleased.
"They gave me an alternative," Milingo told me. "Either no longer be a
healer, or offer my resignation as bishop. I myself said to them:
Jesus Christ was a preacher, he cast out devils and he healed the
sick. He was all in one." He held up three fingers and counted down,
then he brought his hand to rest against his chest. "So why should I
oblige myself to give up healing, or offer resignation?"
In the end, he had less control over the situation than he had
thought. In 1982, he was called to the Vatican to discuss the
legitimacy of his healing ministry.
"The Holy Father said to me: 'You should not be surprised by the
inquiries that are taking place. Padre Pio was treated the same way.'"
Padre Pio is perhaps the most famous Catholic mystic and stigmatic of
the 20th century; for the pontiff to offer this comparison was
significant. "And then he told me, 'I am going to safeguard your
charism.'"
That Pope John Paul II believed he had a charism, a spiritual gift,
worth protecting, comforted Milingo. But then he learned the nature of
that protection. Instead of returning to Zambia, he would remain in
Rome as a delegate to a pontifical council -- the ecclesiastic
equivalent of a desk job.
"I did not accept it easily," he said.
FULL DISCLOSURE: A FEW OF THE COMPLICATIONS in this story are not
Milingo's but my own.
Not long after the archbishop's midsummer relocation to Washington
last year, I received an invitation to speak at a meeting of married
Catholic priests and their wives in Saddle Brook, N.J. The invitation
itself was not so strange: My parents happen to be one such couple,
and I had recently published a book about them.
Although Milingo has brought unprecedented attention to the issue of
clerical celibacy, the movement to allow Catholic priests to marry
goes back at least 40 years. After the modernizing moment in the
church known as the Second Vatican Council, priests such as my father
believed the ground was shifting so dramatically that they would soon
be allowed to marry without ending their service. Many of them wed in
the hope that doing so would quicken the arrival of this inevitable
change. Disappointed, they have lived in a kind of exile ever since.
As far as the Vatican is concerned, the only men who can legitimately
call themselves "married Catholic priests" are the relatively few
former Protestant ministers who were already married when they
converted to Catholicism and were ordained. They are not required to
take a vow of celibacy. Their compatriots who are already Catholic
priests when they decide to wed (there are now estimated to be
100,000) don't have that option. The church prefers that these return
to layman status by going through an annulment-like process called
laicization, in which they must agree that their ordination was a
mistake, usually because of immaturity or some other personal failing.
Those who refuse to do so technically remain priests -- as the Roman
ordination rite states, "you are a priest forever" -- but they are no
longer acknowledged as such and are not allowed to serve the faithful
in any way.
Because of my family background, the conference organizers hoped I
might add an intergenerational element to the program. I agreed
immediately. I had grown up attending similar summits of reform-minded
Catholics, so I thought I knew what to expect.
But from the moment I arrived at the first gathering of Milingo's new
organization, Married Priests Now, it was obvious I was wrong. To
begin with, its 70 or so participants were a much more international
crowd than those at the previous meetings I'd attended. As I prepared
to make my after-lunch remarks on the experiences of the children of
priests, I could hear Italian, Portuguese and Spanish rising from the
crowd sitting before me in the small hotel meeting room. And then
there was Milingo himself. Dressed in a flowing black cassock with red
piping and a matching red zuchetto (the skull cap that, by its color,
identifies the rank of Catholic clergy), he sat beside me at a long
table adjacent to the speaker's lectern. He occasionally spoke to the
air without an obvious conversation partner in sight. To be a Roman
Catholic archbishop is to assume that someone always wants to hear
what you have to say.
When Milingo rose to speak formally, he recounted his recent troubles
with Rome. He had received a number of warnings and admonitions since
what he called his "escape." In a fervent singsong, he read aloud a
letter of rebuke he had received from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re,
prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Re's letter named by number
the canon laws that had been broken, and Milingo recited these with
flair. "Canon one three three one," he chanted, "canon one three eight
two . . . canon one three four seven . . ."
"Bingo!" came a voice from the married priests, and then a ripple of
laughter. The Vatican's censure excited them; it meant they were being
noticed.
But what most surprised me about the conference was that perhaps a
quarter of the people in attendance had no obvious connection to its
content. Filling a block of about 16 seats, a contingent of
Unification Church members clustered around Maria Sung. She was
dressed in a smart, red wool suit, and talked animatedly with the men
and women surrounding her. They were more than moral support: I'd seen
them serving as conference planners, registration assistants, note
takers, videographers and audio technicians. They were, it seemed,
running the show.
If there was any doubt about that, it was dispelled later in the
afternoon, when the lights dimmed, a screen dropped from the ceiling
and a film titled "Man of Peace" began. I had been told that the
meeting had received funding from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, but I was
nonetheless surprised by this and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsors moment,
complete with images of Jesus dissolving into photographs of a man who
calls himself the "Lord of the Second Advent" and the "True Love
King." It seemed to have nothing to do with the issues that had
brought us together that day.
Except, of course, that Moon was paying for all in attendance to see
it, mostly by providing payment in kind: meals, travel and lodging
expenses. As a speaker, I was among the few with a little more to
gain. Three weeks later, when I received a $400 honorarium for my
appearance, it came not from Married Priests Now but from an
organization I had never heard of, identified on the check only as
"FFWPU." As I soon learned, this was just another way to spell "Moon."
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, THERE IS NO UNIFICATION CHURCH. In 1996, Moon
declared that the religious organization he had founded in the rubble
of the Korean War -- after receiving divine instruction on a
mountaintop at age 15 -- had served its purpose. After a 42-year
existence marked by repeated suspicion and rejection, first in Korea
then in the United States and Europe, the Holy Spirit Association for
the Unification of World Christianity would transform itself.
Moon proclaimed that his seemingly endless resources (the wellspring
of which remains a source of conjecture) now would be applied not to
any religious organizations, but to world peace. At his command,
Unification congregations around the country took down all signs
identifying them as such, and took on a new name: the Family
Federation for World Peace and Unification. By keeping its goals
generic, the Family Federation proved able to bring new projects and
associates under the Moon umbrella in ways the "Unification Church"
had not.
These were transitional years for Milingo, as well. True to his word,
the pope had safeguarded the archbishop's charism. Although going back
to Lusaka in any formal capacity was still out of the question,
Milingo -- now a minor official on the Vatican commission for
migration and tourism -- had been allowed to return to his healing
ministry. He was free to hold services in any church that would have
him.
Soon, as in Zambia, the crowds found him wherever he preached. He
started receiving invitations to speak and conduct healing ceremonies
around the world. His 1995 album of original compositions, " Gubudu
Gubudu," became an Italian bestseller. Invitations followed to appear
not just at religious events but also at international music concerts
and blues festivals. He eagerly accepted.
Even the spirit world seemed to take notice. A woman who said she
received messages from Saint Catherine of Siena informed Milingo that
God was calling him to save the church. As his popularity grew and his
travels took him around the world, Milingo again heard familiar
complaints from his brother bishops. They said he had brought voodoo
and witch doctor ways with him from Africa. They said he had no
jurisdiction to perform his rites in their dioceses. They attempted to
restrict his travel, demanding that he request permission from the
local bishop wherever he intended to preach.
Milingo began to clash openly with those he considered his enemies. In
November 1996, speaking at a conference in Rome, he declared that
Satanism was being practiced at the highest levels of the Vatican. He
did not name names, but who were more likely to worship the devil than
those who wished to keep an exorcist from his work?
As in Lusaka, it was not only Catholics who came to him, but anyone in
need of healing. So Milingo was not surprised when people he called
"Moonists" began to attend his prayer services. Soon they began
visiting him at home, and when they invited him to a more formal
gathering, he accepted.
It would not have taken long to learn that he and their leader had
much in common. Moon, too, had changed his name. Moon, too, believed
that his mission had begun with direct instructions from Jesus Christ.
Moon also had suffered abuse and rejection.
While the fathers of his own faith tried to restrict Milingo's travel,
Father Moon, as the archbishop came to call him, encouraged and funded
it. In February 1999, the Family Federation flew Milingo to Korea to
take part in the blessing ceremony of 40,000 couples in Seoul's
Olympic Stadium. Then the Family Federation invited him to Washington,
to spend time with the director of Moon's interreligious outreach
program, Frank Kaufman, whom Milingo refers to as part of "the
orientation committee."
"It was a beautiful time," Kaufman told me. "We spent 40 days together
in a house in Northern Virginia. The archbishop started each day by
saying Mass for several hours before breakfast, and then we studied
Reverend Moon's teachings seven or eight hours a day, six days a week.
On Sundays, we rested. We'd go to dinner, see a movie. Once we watched
a wonderful submarine film. I believe it was 'U-571.'
"At the end of our time together, the archbishop met with Reverend
Moon, who urged him to think about getting married. There's a
tradition in Unification thought that a marriage can be performed in
the spirit world: A living person can be joined spiritually to one
that has passed on. At first, that's what the archbishop thought we
had in mind, and he seemed agreeable to the idea. But Reverend Moon
said, 'No, you should have a wife.'" According to Kaufman, the
interest the Family Federation has taken in Milingo is not unique. The
late grand mufti of Syria, Ahmed Kuftaro, once traveled to the United
States for Unification lessons. The former president of Uganda,
Godfrey Binaisa, married a woman of Moon's choosing. In recent years,
Moon has focused particular attention on African American clergy. A
Family Federation offshoot known as the American Clergy Leadership
Conference (ACLC) -- founded, according to its Web site, "on a
mountaintop in South Korea" -- exists to sponsor conferences in the
United States. One of the ACLC's recent initiatives: encouraging
pastors to "tear down the cross" in their churches and replace it with
Moon's religious symbol of choice, a crown.
One of the ACLC's co-chairs is the District's own George Augustus
Stallings, a former Catholic priest who started the Imani Temple on
Capitol Hill then split with Rome. Married to a bride of Moon's
choosing on the same day Milingo wed Maria Sung, Stallings was one of
the four men Milingo ordained as a bishop of Married Priests Now.
Despite his growing respect for the work of Moon and his followers,
Milingo demurred at first on the issue of marriage. But still he
allowed himself to begin a process that Unificationists call
"matching." This ritualized selection of marriage partners can take
many forms. Originially, it involved crowds of men and women in a
large room with Moon pairing them off. More recently, matches of young
Unificationists have been made by parents. In Milingo's case, Moon
himself would decide whom he was to marry.
The Unificationists proposed multiple candidates, Milingo recalled.
"None of it felt comfortable," he says. "I myself founded three
congregations based on the perfection of celibacy. I always felt I
should be the first example of that celibacy." Although, as a priest,
he had spoken many times about the benefits of marriage for the laity,
the idea of his own marriage was so alien that he could not imagine
how such a thing could come to be, even if he desired it, which he did
not.
But neither could he have imagined what awaited him in Rome. Around
the time he returned from the United States in 2000, he was removed
from his post on the pontifical council. In November came another
blow: He learned that the church's rules governing exorcism had been
changed -- changed, it seemed, specifically to slight him. The new
guidelines echoed many of the criticisms he had heard through the
years: "Anything resembling hysteria, artificiality, theatricality or
sensationalism should be absent from such gatherings . . ." And then
it got personal: ". . . above all on the part of those who are in
charge."
"The church that I love treated me as a stranger," Milingo said later,
"exiling me and ultimately placing shackles upon my ministry . . . But
still the command of Jesus resounded within me: 'Heal the sick; cast
out devils; preach the Gospel.' What was I to do?"
Early in the new year, Milingo decided to take up Moon's offer. To
ease the way, Moon chose for him someone Milingo had already met: an
acupuncturist who had treated him in Rome.
When he flew to New York to be married in May 2001, he was 71. He had
known no life but the one the church had given him since he was a boy
hunting mice in the Eastern Province. "In the summers, we did not need
to watch the cattle," he remembered, "and so we were free."
"DID YOU EVER SEE 'STAR WARS'?" the Rev. Phillip Schanker asked me. We
were sitting together in his office at the national headquarters of
the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, about two miles
south of Milingo's residence on 16th Street.
"You know at the end, when they get that shot right into the middle of
the Death Star? You know?" He put a meaty fist in the air, a rough
model of Darth Vader's orbiting battle station, then spread his
fingers like debris flying into space. "Boom." That, he said, is what
"Reverend Moon knew that marrying a bishop of the Roman Catholic faith
would be like."
The Family Federation's vice president for education, Schanker has
been a member of the Unification Church since 1972. He was 18 when he
joined and, he said, "a perfect example of the kind of person who
responded to Reverend Moon when he first arrived in this country."
Schanker had taken a semester off from college to hitchhike around the
United States. "I wasn't in the gutter; I wasn't a pot-smoking hippie;
I'd already stopped that stuff," he said. "But I was sensitive to
injustice in the world, and I was unwilling to go a normal career path
until I could figure out a way to make some contribution to the
world."
Then came Moon, and he decided not to return to the life he had known.
"I was raised as a Unitarian, which meant I had a lot of questions but
not a lot of answers. When I told my parents that I was joining
Reverend Moon's church, they knew me well enough, and the sense of
integrity with which they'd raised me, to know that I had made the
decision on my own. My father didn't think I was brainwashed; he just
thought I was stupid."
Schanker is an exceedingly thoughtful and articulate apologist for his
faith, which is why he, more than any another Unificationist, has been
positioned close to the center of the Milingo affair. He was with the
newlyweds in August 2001 when the archbishop decided to return to the
good graces of the church. Acting as Maria Sung's primary spokesman,
he orchestrated a campaign that managed to turn the tide of public
opinion in Italy toward her favor. At the start of the "summer soap
opera," as the Milingo wedding and its fallout became known, she had
been portrayed as a cultist vixen who had brought a respected
clergyman low. By the time Milingo reconciled with John Paul II, an
editorial cartoon in the Italian newspaper La Stampa showed the
archbishop and the pope locked in an embrace, oblivious to the plight
of the woman nailed to a cross behind them. Such a reversal was no
mean feat in a country in which the Catholic Church's influence
remains significant, and Schanker was responsible for it.
Considering his media savvy, he no doubt noticed my reaction as I
jotted down his Death Star response to a question about Moon's
interest in Milingo.
"I don't think his thinking is to destroy the Catholic faith. I don't
think his thinking is to fight with the Catholic faith," Schanker said
of Moon, adding that Moon wants to start "a necessary process for the
church to renew, to grow, to develop.
"Married priests can create a renewal movement withi n the faith, one
that shows that marriage is a step up from the celibate priesthood."
For the most part, Unificationist leaders shy away from the notion
that they have a stake in changing other religions. They prefer to
keep the focus on marriage. Except where Catholic clergy are
concerned, it's a cause with which few would disagree. Yet when Moon's
followers speak about supporting marriage, they are, in fact, making a
larger statement.
Moon's teachings raise the oft-repeated ideal of "traditional family
values" to a cosmic and metaphysical level. The reason for the
spectacle of stadium-size weddings is that for Unificationists,
marriage is not, as in other faiths, one of many equally significant
religious rituals. It is in fact their only sacrament. It is also the
key to their theology, which motivates everything they do.
"Unificationism is real simple," Schanker says, giving me a quick
precis of the movement's teachings. "The institution created in the
Garden of Eden was the family, not any religion. And that family
became separated from God through their immature use of love. Through
marriage, we can repair this separation."
The primary text of Unificationism, Divine Principle, Moon's book-
length interpretation of scripture and history, positions him at the
end of a chronology that begins in Eden and passes through Jerusalem
on its way to Korea and the revelation of his birth and ministry.
Adapting the biblical Genesis story, Moon teaches that Eve not only
ate the forbidden fruit but also had sexual relations with Satan, then
passed along this pollution to Adam. In the process, they became "evil
parents," and their children, "evil children." This designation
included all humanity until God told Moon how he could put an end to
it: Moon himself would become "True Father" to reverse the mistakes of
the "Evil Father," Adam; his wife would become "True Mother" to
counter the "Evil Mother," Eve. Through the "True Parents'" marriage
blessing, those trapped in "evil lineage" would be released to a "true
lineage." As Unificationists see it, every couple blessed by Moon
brings the world one step closer to the establishment of the Kingdom
of Heaven on Earth, and moreover re-affirms his role as Father and
King, second only to God. If, through Milingo, Moon could move what
Schanker called "the world's most influential religion" one step
closer to the Unificationist view of marriage, it certainly would be
worth the price of a few conferences and Milingo's upkeep.
As Schanker summed up Moon's intentions: "He's the messiah, right? His
mind is 'I'm going to save the world.'"
THE MARRIED PRIESTS NOW MEETING I ATTENDED as a speaker last fall was
only a warm-up for a more ambitious event held in Parsippany, N.J., in
December. Milingo and his supporters hoped this would be 10 times as
large, convening 1,000 priests and their wives. Dairo Ferrabolli, a
former Catholic priest who has been associated with Moon for 20 years,
said the budget for travel and lodging exceeded $160,000.
The weekend began with a banquet held beneath the six chandeliers of
the Parsippany Sheraton's grand ballroom. With registration of married
priests far below expectations (fewer than 200 of those hoped for),
members of the FFWPU and the ACLC were on hand to fill seats in what
otherwise would have been a vast and mostly empty room.
Also in attendance was an odd assortment of representatives from a
variety of religious traditions, whom Family Federation president
Michael Jenkins had invited to provide the interfaith element that has
been part of Unification events since the '90s. Among the Muslims was
Dawud Assad of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey. "When you are
not married, you have only half faith," he proclaimed. "When you are
married, your faith is complete."
The Rev. Jesse Edwards, a Pentecostal preacher in a shiny gray suit
that matched his silver pompadour and gave him a slight resemblance to
Oz's Tin Man, treated the crowd of Catholic dissidents to a little old-
time religion. He'd had his marriage rededicated at the same ceremony
in which Milingo wed, he noted. Then he revved up his preaching
engine. "Archbishop, the day we were blessed, I believe the world was
changed!" he shouted. "Archbishop, the day we were blessed, it was not
just a ceremony to remember! It was a fulfilling of the word of God!"
"It has been the dream of every Pentecostal preacher to come into a
room full of priests and preach to them," Edwards said later. "My wife
has been kidding me I might get converted! I told her, if I do become
a Catholic priest, I'll make sure there's a Jacuzzi in every
confessional." Then a man who looked as though he had stepped from the
pages of an Orthodox Jewish clothing catalogue -- black suit, black
beard, black fedora -- walked into the room. He'd flown in Friday
night for the occasion.
The next day, he handed me a business card that read, "Rabbi Dr.
Mordehi Waldman: Have Shofar Will Travel." The leader of a
"struggling" congregation in Michigan, he had enjoyed 15 minutes of
fame about three years ago, when he appeared at a reception held in
the Dirksen Senate Office Building and blew his shofar to announce the
coming of the messiah just before Moon had himself crowned "humanity's
Savior" and "returning Lord."
After freelance journalist John Gorenfeld wrote about it in June 2004,
the event was a major embarrassment for the congressmen who attended.
It had been a big day for Waldman, however. Though blowing the shofar
-- a curved piece of ram's horn used like a trumpet -- is usually
reserved for the Jewish High Holy Days, Waldman now blows his at every
opportunity. He has done so for Unification events across Asia and
Europe, occasionally referring to his patron as "Rabbi Moon."
What's in it for him?
"About a year ago, they said to me, 'Rabbi, it's not good for you to
be alone,'" he told me. "You should have a wife, they said. Then they
asked me: 'What kind of wife would you like?' So I said, 'A slender
blonde.'"
I wondered if I was hearing a bit of shtick, but then he added,
"That's how I met this lovely lady right here." Sure enough, he pulled
a slender blond woman to his side. "Look at us, a German Lutheran and
a Jewish rabbi! Hello! Reconciliation, right?"
When next I saw the rabbi, he was back in the grand ballroom, blowing
his shofar midway through the centerpiece of the weekend, a combined
Catholic Mass and Unification marriage blessing. Begun with a
procession of priests and their wives -- in which the priests wore
stoles and vestments, and the wives wore bulk-rate bridal veils that a
team of Unificationist women had affixed to their heads -- it was a
long, awkward, confusing ritual.
Milingo presided dressed in full Catholic regalia, while his wife,
beside him, wore a formal, white and red Korean hanbok, which covered
her from the floor to the tips of her fingers. After communion,
Milingo called for the singing of one of his favorite hymns. "Spirit
of the living God, fall afresh on me," he sang. "Melt me, mold me,
fill me, use me."
As others picked up the melody and sang along, Milingo stretched out
his arms and gave his blessing to the small crowd before him. At the
hymn's end, he departed from any recognizable language and chanted an
incantation of rapid-fire syllables. Both Catholic and Unificationist
couples then took part in a "marriage rededication," pledging to be
"True Parents" in order to "become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven."
Later that day, Milingo would be distressed to learn that some of the
married priests felt uncomfortable that the traditional formula of the
Mass had been rearranged to make room for the Unification rites. Among
those concerned was the Rev. William Manseau, my father, who took part
in the Mass but not the rededication. He had come to Parsippany full
of hope, believing that Milingo was the kind of attention-getting,
high-level supporter his movement had been needing. Now he was less
sure.
"They seem to be saying Moon's blessing is necessary for membership in
the Kingdom of Heaven," he said. "But as Catholics, we believe we have
that already, by baptism."
At a news conference after the ceremony, Milingo assured the married
priests of his devotion to Catholicism.
"My religion is not superficial," he told me later. Moon "has great
respect for the Catholic Church," yet "there are certain things on
which certainly we do not agree."
Despite a career spent moving from one continent of controversy to
another, Milingo is at heart a nonconfrontational man. He glosses over
theological differences he has with both Moon and Rome, a tendency
that allows him to assert his orthodoxy even as he diverges from
church teachings.
Milingo says he and Moon have "never discussed" their differences.
"They have their own viewpoint. How do you discuss? It is no different
from discussing such things with a Jew . . . or a Muslim; they believe
different things." Instead, Milingo says, "we speak of the high
things: to live for others, to live for peace, and of course the
family and so on." As someone who spent years merging African and
Roman beliefs, he doesn't seem distressed by the addition of yet
another element.
Which perhaps was why, when the ceremony was done, he joined Catholics
and Unificationists alike as they chanted the traditional closing
notes of Moon's marriage blessing: "Ok Mansei! Ok Mansei! Ok Mansei!"
Ten thousand years of victory!
AFTER HE HAD RETURNED TO ROME IN 2001, there had been a brief attempt
by the Vatican to improve Milingo's opinion of his place within the
church. Thanks to his protector, John Paul II, he was given a
spiritual center of his own. He was allowed to travel and continue his
healing ministry. For a time, Milingo seemed repentant. In a book-
length "conversation" published in Italy, the archbishop agreed with
his interviewer, Vatican-approved journalist Michele Zanzucchi, that
Moon had been fomenting a split of Africa's Catholic church. The only
reason Milingo had gotten married, he said, was because it was the
condition under which the Unificationists would provide him with the
opportunity to preach to the large gatherings they sponsored. Given
the restrictions he had faced in Rome, it had seemed a price worth
paying.
Not long after John Paul II died in 2005, however, Milingo's fortunes
changed again. He learned that his prayer services would be limited to
once a week. "They saw me then like a hurt bull: They never knew what
I might do," he says. A priest or two nuns chaperoned him wherever he
went. "Intolerable restrictions," he recalled. When he disappeared
from Italy in June 2006, he flew to South Korea to see the one man he
thought could help. For Milingo, Moon was a way out. And for Moon,
Milingo might yet prove a way in.
"This is a most serious moment," the president of the Family
Federation wrote to its members concerning Milingo in November. "We
must now do massive outreach to Catholics."
In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Milingo denied
the words Zanzucchi had attributed to him, saying they were not his
but those of a Vatican-orchestrated PR effort. Yet all talk of
conspiracy and motive leaves something crucial out of the equation,
something I saw one evening over dinner. The night before the
conference in Parsippany, I joined Milingo, Maria Sung, an Italian
married priest and his wife, and a senior Korean Unificationist in the
hotel restaurant.
As they settled into their places, Sung straightened the archbishop's
placemat. Then she arranged his fork so that it was better aligned
with his spoon.
"So, what are we having?" Milingo asked when the waiter arrived.
"Rack of lamb for you," Sung answered. For herself, she ordered only a
salad.
As the meals arrived, talk flowed down the table from Italian to
English to Korean. They spoke mainly about the publicity Milingo had
so far received, but no one mentioned his excommunication. The Italian
priest presented a folder full of clippings, then reported that an
interview with Milingo on an Italian Web site had received 5 million
hits in one day.
"Cinque milioni?" Milingo repeated. As if so impressed he had to share
the news, he said to me, "Five million!" as Sung simultaneously turned
and repeated the number in Korean. The conversation proceeded in that
awkward way for some time: Italian to English, Italian to Korean,
Korean to English to Italian. Sung was the only one among us who could
more or less communicate with everyone else.
With her husband, it seemed she didn't need to say anything at all. As
his wife picked at her salad, Milingo touched her arm lightly, then
handed her a lamb chop from his plate.
She smiled as if she'd been presented a blue Tiffany box.
"Oh, molto generoso," she said, beaming and laughing with playful
gratitude. " Grazie, mio marito. "
The archbishop nodded humbly, seemingly pleased his sacrifice had been
accepted.
"Would anyone care for dessert?" the waiter asked.
All declined save Milingo, who studied the dessert menu intently. When
Sung noticed that he intended to order, she chided him theatrically --
"Oh, basta!" -- and patted his belly. " Basta!"
But Milingo only grinned. Something had caught his eye, and he was not
about to turn back. Pointing to the description of one dessert, he
asked the waiter, "What is this here, this, ah, whipped cream?"
The waiter scanned the faces at the table. Having heard everyone else
speaking Italian or Korean, he seemed to think I was the only other
one who had understood the question. Our eyes met for an instant: How
do you describe whipped cream?
"It's sort of like milk, but thick," I offered.
Milingo squinted in my direction.
"It is good, it is good," the waiter said.
"Yes. I will have that, then."
As the waiter departed, the archbishop rubbed his hands together,
grinning like a child.
"Whipped cream!" he said. His eyes glowed with anticipation.
When his dessert of strawberries and cream arrived a moment later,
Sung reached freely with her spoon to taste this delicacy herself.
Milingo offered no protest. They were married after all, Mr. and Mrs.
Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, clinking dessert spoons in a single bowl.
What could those behind the Vatican walls know of such easy intimacy?
They sure do seem happy, I thought.
Only a cynic would note that Moon's man picked up the check.
Peter Manseau is the author of Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and
their Son. He can be reached at manse...@gmail.com or through his
Web site: www.petermanseau.com. He will be fielding questions and
comments about this article Monday at noon.
--
Damian J. Anderson
Damian....@gmail.com
PO Box 6488
Silver Spring, MD 20916, USA
+1-301-921-0082
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not
leadership." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
yann
wrote:
> Dear World Ties readers,
>
Is it for real ?
Who can read a 500 lines article about the old bedridden libidinous
excommunicated priest who gets married with a young woman's favorite
dessert ?
Gordon
they have lied to,decieved and damaged then they would of had
sympathetic articles in the mainstream press a long time ago,NO ONE
TRUSTS LIARS,DECIEVERS AND MISLEADERS (Satan), but now that more
legitimate honest religious leaders are following Rev.Moon the main
press can trust these people more.
Stewart Webster buggered my life and prevented me from being married
and having children since the late 1980s then in 1997 when i found out
i had been lied to,decieved and misled mainly by Stewart Webster then
the Scottish leader Robert Williamson ignored me and has ignored me
since,EITHER THEY ARE EVIL OR STUPID but there are always serious
consequences for buggering peoples lives,they are also ABUSERS OF THE
MESSIAH using the Messiah to destroy peoples lives,THIS IS EVIL
INCARNATE,and not one moonie APOLOGISIES so the bad reputation
connected with Rev.Moon the Messiah NEVER GOES AWAY until now because
Rev.Moon is publicly associating with good decent honest religious
leaders that dont have a bad reputation of lying,decieve,and
misleading people.
http://www.ffwpu.org.uk click on(Family Church,Scotland) Stewart
Webster goes to the sunday service at FFWPU Shop,30 Easter Road
Edinburgh,Scotland,U.K.
I WANT MY WIFE IM OWED AND 20 YEARS AND AN APOLOGY from THESE EVIL
CRIMINALS Stewart Webster and Robert Williamson.
Rev.Moon says his mission is to marry every person in the world into
the TRUE LINEAGE OF GOD and these 2 moonie criminals Stewart Webster
and Robert Williamson have prevented me from being married by Rev.Moon
which means they are serving Satan by preventing people from being
married into the TRUE LINEAGE OF GOD,creating ANGER,RAGE and
HATRED,this is not the inffleunce of God but the inffluence of Satan
and evil from these 2 moonies in Edinburgh.
http://familyfed.org
http://lafamilyfed.org
http://www.trueloveking.net
http://www.definingmoment.tv
http://us.chungpyung.org
On 12 Mar, 12:59, "Damian J. Anderson" <Damian.Ander...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear World Ties readers,
>
> This is a truly remarkable article from the Washington Post both about
> the Catholic Church, and married priests and Unificationism. I have
> rarely seen an article written in the mainstream liberal press which
> is so sympathetic to faith in general, and to the Unificationist faith
> in particular. So I would like to thank the author Peter Manseau, who
> is himself the son of a married priest and his wife. For the author
> who is reading this, I am posting this article to two mailing lists of
> Unificationists and their friends which total about 2700 subscribers,
> and thank you for a thoughtful sincere article. We as Unificationists
> rarely receive such even handed favorable coverage from the press.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Damian Anderson
> Webmasterwww.Unification.net
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR200...
> a hooting laugh, as if all at once he had come to understand the ...
>
> read more »
Damian J. Anderson
Be a man Gordon, and stop whining.
Damian Anderson
> http://familyfed.orghttp://lafamilyfed.orghttp://www.trueloveking.nethttp://www.definingmoment.tvhttp://us.chungpyung.org
Damian J. Anderson
campaign to reform the Roman Catholic church, and reintroduce the
hundred thousand or so married priests back into active ministry in
the church.
Damian Anderson
Bruce
<Damian....@gmail.com> wrote:
>The archbishop is far from bedridden. He is leading an international
>campaign to reform the Roman Catholic church, and reintroduce the
>hundred thousand or so married priests back into active ministry in
>the church.
Reform them, or convert them? I've heard it told BOTH ways
by the ArchBishop himself. It all depended on who he was working
for at the time when he said it.
None the less YOU took it upon yourself to crosspost to the RCC
Newsgroup.
Trying to get them to trade one Holy Father for ANOTHER, namely
the Pope for Reverand Moon! I'm not surprised by such, really I'm
not. It just proves what people have been saying about Moon all along
as he tries to inherit the legacy of the RCC.
;-O
Bob Abendroth
> On 12 Mar 2007 21:43:22 -0700, "Damian J. Anderson"
>
> >The archbishop is far from bedridden. He is leading an international
> >campaign to reform the Roman Catholic church, and reintroduce the
> >hundred thousand or so married priests back into active ministry in
> >the church.
>
> Reform them, or convert them? I've heard it told BOTH ways
> by the ArchBishop himself. It all depended on who he was working
> for at the time when he said it.
>
> None the less YOU took it upon yourself to crosspost to the RCC
> Newsgroup.
>
> Trying to get them to trade one Holy Father for ANOTHER, namely
> the Pope for Reverand Moon! I'm not surprised by such, really I'm
> not. It just proves what people have been saying about Moon all along
> as he tries to inherit the legacy of the RCC.
Well... you know Bruce, the Popes have served only one purpose... to
keep the seat warm for when the Lord of the Second Advent finally
arrives.
Bob A.
Bruce
wrote:
Thanks for verifying Moons goal and that of the ArchBishop as well.
I'm sure Nostrodomus would have a different perspective than yours
about it all.
>Bob A.
Bruce
wrote:
>On Mar 13, 2:31 am, Bruce <b...@earthlink.net> wrote:
You can't win against me, Bobby. GO(o)D shames you for even trying.
>
>Bob A.
Go with GO(o)D, or don't even bother..
Bruce
Bruce
"No man is GO(o)D, only GOD is GO(o)D"
-Jesus Christ
, thanks for trying..
Bruce
Bruce
What is GO(o)D for one is GO(o)D for ALL. Something Moon never taught
you! No small wonder that *moonies* are failing to unite the world.
bd4u
Bruce
God is GO(o)D, all that is GO(o)D is from God. Don't forget that!!!
Bruce
Bruce
-hoping to reach somebody with these words. Although I don't expect
it will be *moonie* Bobby. *moonies* are all alike, with only thoughts
of Moon.
Bob Abendroth
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:06:50 GMT, Bruce <b...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:03:35 GMT, Bruce <b...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >>On 13 Mar 2007 09:25:12 -0700, "Bob Abendroth" <RWAbendr...@aol.com>
Bruce, this is a perfect example of how you have forgotten everything
you ever learned as a moonie. This is indeed a basic teaching of Rev.
Moon that he constantly mentions. Specifically, an individual must
seek to perfect himself on the individual level. This will be the
foundation of mankind's ultimate perfection. How many times as he
said..."individual, family, clan, tribe, nation, world, cosmos". This
is exactly what he is talking about... what is good for one is good
for all.
Bob A.
Bruce
wrote:
>On Mar 13, 6:21 pm, Bruce <b...@earthlink.net> wrote:
So *moonie* lies and deceit are GO(o)D? If it were people would flock
to Moon. Cause EVERYbody wants GO(o)D, some even try to lie and
cheat just to get it too! Jesus had a few words to say about it..
Like trying to enter the Fathers house through the back door.
>Bob A.
But as usual I'm wasting my time arguing with you, when I have
more important things to do. I mostly ignor you *moonies* cause it's
always the same old cock and bull story for you. Yer like a broken
record, *moonie* dude.
Bob Abendroth
> On 14 Mar 2007 04:38:06 -0700, "Bob Abendroth" <RWAbendr...@aol.com>
Did Israel flock to Jesus? No they did not. Think about it Bruce.
Gordon
someone steals your car and breaks into your house would you accept if
police ignored you and said stop whininng,THE POLICE DONT DO THIS the
police have a higher standard than moonies,the police restore order
and deal the with the problem,the moonies ignore the problem THEY
CAUSED,the MOONIES SAY THEY LIVE A HIGHER STANDARD THAN the rest of
society but obviously THEY DONT.
There are moonies commiting very serious criminal offences against
peoples lives and im not whining i am very serious about these
criminal moonies LYING,DECIEVING and MISLEADING PEOPLE,i still believe
Rev.Moon could be the Messiah and i agree with his legitimate
teachings and thats why im still around,I DONT HAVE A WIFE,CHILDREN
AND FAMILY since the late 1980s do you not understand this,mainly
because of the moonie liar AN EVIL PERSON called Stewart Webster and
hundreds of other people have had the same mess caused to there lives
by LYING MOONIES.
The moonies are supposed to be restoring the world and not creating
more damage so why are these Edinburgh moonies not restoring the
damage they caused to my life by FIRST APOLOGISING to me then
organising for Rev.Moon to give me my wife i was prevented from
having.I AM DEADLY SERIOUS,I AM NOT WHINING AND THERE ARE VERY SERIOUS
CONSEQUENCES COMING FOR THE DIRTY,FILTHY LYING MOONIES IN
EDINBURGH,SCOTLAND,U.K.
THESE MOONIES in Edinburgh OBVIOUSLY SERVE SATAN,ANGER,HATRED they are
not following God,if they were they would immediatly apologies to me
and create LOVE,PEACE,HAPPINESS,they are not doing this,they are doing
what criminals do.
On 13 Mar, 04:41, "Damian J. Anderson" <Damian.Ander...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
Be a man Gordon, and stop whining.
>
> Damian Anderson
>
> On Mar 12, 1:59 pm, "Gordon" <gordonmuir2003goo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > If Unificationists(moonies) APOLOGISED to all the hundreds of people
> > they have lied to,decieved and damaged then they would of had
> > sympathetic articles in the mainstream press a long time ago,NO ONE
> > TRUSTS LIARS,DECIEVERS AND MISLEADERS (Satan), but now that more
> > legitimate honest religious leaders are following Rev.Moon the main
> > press can trust these people more.
>
> > Stewart Webster buggered my life and prevented me from being married
> > and having children since the late 1980s then in 1997 when i found out
> > i had been lied to,decieved and misled mainly by Stewart Webster then
> > the Scottish leader Robert Williamson ignored me and has ignored me
> > since,EITHER THEY ARE EVIL OR STUPID but there are always serious
> > consequences for buggering peoples lives,they are also ABUSERS OF THE
> > MESSIAH using the Messiah to destroy peoples lives,THIS IS EVIL
> > INCARNATE,and not one moonie APOLOGISIES so the bad reputation
> > connected with Rev.Moon the Messiah NEVER GOES AWAY until now because
> > Rev.Moon is publicly associating with good decent honest religious
> > leaders that dont have a bad reputation of lying,decieve,and
> > misleading people.
>
> >http://www.ffwpu.org.ukclick on(Family Church,Scotland) Stewart
> > Webster goes to the sunday service at FFWPU Shop,30 Easter Road
> > Edinburgh,Scotland,U.K.
>
> > I WANT MY WIFE IM OWED AND 20 YEARS AND AN APOLOGY from THESE EVIL
> > CRIMINALS Stewart Webster and Robert Williamson.
>
> > Rev.Moon says his mission is to marry every person in the world into
> > the TRUE LINEAGE OF GOD and these 2 moonie criminals Stewart Webster
> > and Robert Williamson have prevented me from being married by Rev.Moon
> > which means they are serving Satan by preventing people from being
> > married into the TRUE LINEAGE OF GOD,creating ANGER,RAGE and
> > HATRED,this is not the inffleunce of God but the inffluence of Satan
> > and evil from these 2 moonies in Edinburgh.
>
> >http://familyfed.orghttp://lafamilyfed.orghttp://www.trueloveking.net...
>
> > On 12 Mar, 12:59, "Damian J. Anderson" <Damian.Ander...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Dear World Ties readers,
>
> > > This is a truly remarkable article from the Washington Post both about
> > > the Catholic Church, and married priests and Unificationism. I have
> > > rarely seen an article written in the mainstream liberal press which
> > > is so sympathetic to faith in general, and to the Unificationist faith
> > > in particular. So I would like to thank the author Peter Manseau, who
> > > is himself the son of a married priest and his wife. For the author
> > > who is reading this, I am posting this article to two mailing lists of
> > > Unificationists and their friends which total about 2700 subscribers,
> > > and thank you for a thoughtful sincere article. We as Unificationists
> > > rarely receive such even handed favorable coverage from the press.
>
> > > Sincerely,
>
> > > Damian Anderson
> > > Webmasterwww.Unification.net
>
> > >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR200...
>
> > >http://tinyurl.com/3a9kug
>
> > > washingtonpost.com
>
> > > A Marriage Made in Heaven?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
but
Bob Abendroth
years it is quite obvious that the two duds in Edinburgh are never
going to respond to you. No one cares if you keep "chanting the same
mantra". But at the same time you need to "take the bull by the horns"
and make things happen anyway. Hope that helps.
Bob A.
> > >http://www.ffwpu.org.ukclickon(Family Church,Scotland) Stewart
> but- Hide quoted text -
Bob Abendroth
> Gordon, I think the point that Damian is making is that now after 20
> years it is quite obvious that the two duds
Meant to say dudes..... but maybe duds is the better description....
who knows.. :-)
> > > >http://www.ffwpu.org.ukclickon(FamilyChurch,Scotland) Stewart
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Damian J. Anderson
proved to everyone within range that you were not marriage material.
If you want a wife, go make a friend, a female friend, love her and
cherish her, and then maybe she might just agree to spend her life
with you. Don't expect anyone else to do your heavy lifting for you.
Come on. As long as you blame someone else for your misfortunes, you
are giving yourself an excuse for not living up to your own full
potential. You are bigger than that. Or you could be if you want to
be.
Damian Anderson
On Mar 17, 2:22 pm, "Gordon" <gordonmuir2003goo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >http://www.ffwpu.org.ukclickon(Family Church,Scotland) Stewart