Vatican III In the Mind of Many

The matter to encourage a Vatican III Council was dealt with, at the Second International Catholic Symposium in June 2008 in Korea, as all participants spoke of the Church as we see it to-morrow. The form of the Church to-morrow will take the original form it had at the beginning of the Apostolic Church. None of the Married Priests Now! Prelature will take the stance of one sided dogmatism, predominance, authoritative one way righteousness. They cannot stand what they call clericalism, which includes Roman Catholic domination. The false Collegiality of Vatican II has failed to renew the Catholic Church. The reason is clear, because Rome monopolized the truth, and only Roma had the last word in everything. Episcopal Conferences became mere stooges of the Vatican State.

I came across some married priests, who are now no more members of our Church. They fall into depression as soon as one mentions Rome. This poor Priest was sent to be analyzed by a psychiatrist when he insisted that he did not feel at home in the Catholic Church, which treated him so cruelly when he discovered that celibacy was not his life.

Another Priest, now a professor in one of the universities of St. Paul, in Brazil, was ordered to write: "I was stupid, for having taken the vow of celibacy, without understanding the consequences." He refused to sign. Still to-day he is not reconciled to the Catholic Church, which lost its brains with upholding celibacy up to be no more sensitive to the mental tortures caused by imposed celibacy.

How Do They See Vatican III?

It may sound Utopian to present the views of Hans Kung, who says of the Church as it ought to be: "The Church" which triggered a debate between him and the Vatican, claims three points. The first, the Church can become the Church of Jesus Christ only when she becomes an open Church that aspires to ecumenism. Second, the purpose of the Church is not to preserve itself, but to serve the world. Third, the original Church system was not to-day's papacy but was closer to a priesthood of all believers, and the diversity of Church duties do not mean class orders (Hans Kung: 1967).

Already, in the words of Hans Kung, the Church failed immediately after its launching in 1965. Hence Archbishop Lefebvre could not stand the change of documents under the banks of the Vatican (desks of the Vatican).

Pope John Paul I was the sacrificed lamb of the refusal of change of the Vatican Policy. Abbe Pierre of France received a revelation in 2005. "One night he was awakened, he saw in the streets of the villages innumerable lamps around the tabernacles. Then a voice said to him: Once more Jesus lives with you, the whole of his body dwells in the tabernacle." From then on he worked very hard to propose the ordination of men, well balanced and approved by people as worthy to be promoted to priestly ordination. He wrote letters to all the Bishops of France, and to the Pope, whom he called "Hostile to the ordination of married men."

Some of the concepts of the married priests at the Symposium, as they view a Priest of to-morrow, define him as a prophet who foretells the events of the coming Kingdom of God. While others see him among his community, as one of them on their aspirations, and planning together the needed services in the community.

The thoughts of Father Schellebecks and the Augustinians in Holland are in line with what our married priests are already experiencing now. They have no money to put under control the people, and to maneuver them as they want. They too are mere wage-earners, leading a simple family life. They preside at mass, counting on everybody present to drop in new ideas for the success of the community services.

Hence the 90 years old Bishop of Brazil says that "the Church of tomorrow will have no Apostolic Nuntio, and no Curia Romana." As a matter of fact the Vatican State is a secular State. It is preoccupied with the expansion of its territory in influence and power. The Vatican State has its own parliament, which has nothing to do with God's Catholic Church. The two genuine simple popes, John Paul I and John Paul II, were not accepted by the Vatican State.

We know what they underwent. Hence Hans Kung put it well when he said: "If the Roman Catholic Church wishes to have its future as the Church in the 21st century, there is a necessity of a new John XXIII, that is, a John XXIV. This John XXIV, as did John XXIII in the mid 20th Century, must call for a Third Vatican Council and lead the Church to change from a Roman Catholic Church to a True Catholic Church, which is a True Universal Church."(Hans Kung: The Catholic Church: 2003)

Married Priests in Vatican III will save the Church.

There are now three categories of married priests with which we are familiar. It is sometimes good to follow a mathematical method. So I write as follows:

1. The associations of married priests, which are first national, then international.

2. The rental or Rent-A-Priest, otherwise CITI Ministries.

3. Married Priests Now! Prelature, the youngest organization of married priests.

The three organizations are totally one in aim:

A. Citi: Restoration of a married priesthood.

B. Associations of married priests: "Finding ways and means to prudently proceed to reach the Vatican Authority to open doors to married priests."

C. Married priests now Prelature: "To reinstate the married priests as they are, and resume their God-given duty to serve the Holy people of God."

The Rent-A-Priest and the Married Priest Now! Prelature are already using the married priests for the services needed for the Holy People of God. They are building communities by starting with celebration of mass in their families, and slowly attracting the surrounding families. While the "Rentapriest" the CITI are as well already on call from all Catholics or Christians in general who are in need of married priest's services. The CITI have a very interesting experience. They say that they are most called by the Catholics who don't go to Church. They call married priests to celebrate at home.

I am sorry for having avoided mentioning the names in any of the organizations

since my aim was to show finally the movement for change into Vatican III has already started. It is not for us to solicit Vatican III. But the Church as it is today needs change, otherwise, it will never move forward with its people. In order to serve its people properly, it has to listen to their cries.

Here we are, the Church of to-morrow.

May the Holy Spirit guide the Catholic Church.

Arch. E. Milingo.

 I Know You Have Been Waiting For This
I Am Going To Paradise, I Am Certain Of It.

I am certain that many of you think of me as a presumptuous person. I am aware of the fact that Paradise is not my property, and naturally I have no right to go to Paradise. I am one of the sons of Adam and Eve, and through them I lost my natural original right to live in Paradise.

You will commit sin if you think of me as being proud and presumptuous as I said earlier on. I have come across many presumptuous people who even swear that they will realize what they have planned. They are cocksure of what they say and declare to others. Those who do not want to be unbelieving Thomases are satisfied by saying: “Anyhow there is a saying that where there is a will, there is a way.” They avoid to be judgmental and give good wishes for success to them.

Going To Paradise Is Very Easy

“Today, you will be with Me in Paradise,” said Jesus to the thief dying on the cross with Him. What made Paradise so easy for the thief? He was not thinking as the crowd was thinking that Jesus was not the Son of God, that He was not the Messiah, and that He was not the King of the Jews. One might say that he was just favored by Jesus because he said consoling words at the moment so dark in the life of Jesus. Not at all, the thief was a very ponderant man, one can see the words he said, and how he said them. In order to avoid a long quotation, I shall try to split the conversations of the three on the crosses. The two who were crucified with Jesus are commonly known as “criminals.” One of these criminals, the first one to address Jesus, acknowledges the great work He did for the people, but challenges Him to do the same for them and for Himself. But he says so with arrogance and selfishness. He says: “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us as well.” The man says such words that Jesus had still to prove to him that He was the Christ. But by so saying, he still offended Him as those who were still standing by to see to it that He dies. With arrogance and self satisfaction, you do not go to Paradise. Jesus had not to show Himself to every Jim and Jack that He was the Christ. He appeals to people of good will, never by force, in order to respect their freedom through persuasion.

I spoke of the second criminal, whom Saint Luke calls “the Good Thief,” as a ponderant person, who weighed every word he said. He first spoke charitably to his companion: “Have you no fear of God at all? You got the same sentence as He did, but in our case we deserved it; we are paying for what we did. But this Man had done nothing wrong.” Then he said: “Jesus remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.” This Kingdom is what is commonly known as Paradise, the Abode of God and His Angels and Saints. Jesus then gives an immediate answer: “In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39~43)

The good thief is the first one to be canonized in the New Testament Era. The Saints who were waiting to have Paradise opened by the Risen Jesus were surprised to see beside Him this good thief, whom they saw on the cross. How long Moses and Aaron were waiting for the coming of Jesus. This good thief just walked into Paradise without even brushing the dust as he came in: “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (315~386) has a say on the story of the Good Thief. “O mighty and indescribable grace! The faithful Abraham had not yet entered, but the robber enters! Moses and Prophets had not yet entered and the robber enters, though a breaker of the law.” Paul also wondered at this when he said: “However much sin increased, grace was always greater.” (Roman 5:20)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem looks at the two in the same boat of condemnation and suffering. He abhors the way the first thief speaks. He was repeating as if it were the insults of the so many passersby who ridiculed Jesus, and were satisfied to see Him crucified. He puts it in one sentence as follows: “He reviled the Lord with passersby who mocked the crucified, fulfilling the Prophetic Psalms that said: ‘They shake their heads at the sight of me.’” (Psalm 109:25)

How many of us would like rather to hear the sweet words of Jesus, as a reply to the words of the good thief? But it is ours to decide. This is how Saint Cyril of Jerusalem looks at the beautiful words of the good thief: “What Power, Oh robber, led you to light? Who taught you to worship that despised Man, your Companion on the cross? O Eternal Light that gives light to those who are in darkness! His request reached into a distant, but grace came quickly.”

“A Paradise On Our Face – A Smile”

In the bygone days in Africa, there used to live in the forests and mountains, those who had committed heinous crimes, which today could condemn them to death. This is different from what in most African countries happens, when the word “thief’ is shouted loudly in the streets. In these cases the Africans have applied what they call instant justice by killing the person on the spot. Nobody is charged for such street murder.

What I am referring too is a crime, dreadful, shameful, and so cruel, be it murder or adultery. It is not good to go into details. Such crimes instead of putting the criminals in prison, they sent them away from the village. Such a one lived in the wilderness. They were called Akapondo. However they could not settle in fixed places, otherwise they will be hunted and killed. However in order to get something to eat, they robbed people in the path ways. This is how they survived.

One day a mother carrying her baby on the back, as usual in many African countries, was going home after cultivating in her garden quite a distance from the village. She was alone, speaking with her baby on the back as she went along. Suddenly this man came out of the bush, holding a club high ready to strike her and her baby. He wanted to rob her of what she had in her basket, green maize, pumpkins, and whatever other victuals she had carried in such a small basket. She ran, but with care, holding the baby in the back and the basket on the head. As the man approached her the baby on the back turned to the man and smiled. The baby did this any time the man raised his club to hit the mother. The man was completely overcome by the smile of the child who showed no sign of being afraid or crying. In the end he stopped, looked at the smiling child on the back of the mother. He gave up pursuing her and her baby.

This is a true story. The mother could not explain why the child was smiling and laughing, the closer the robber came, the more the baby giggled. The baby never saw danger in this man.

I was shocked to death, when I watched a celebration of Mass by an Archbishop on television. He had worn all the required signs of being an Archbishop, including a Pallium. That is how I recognized him as an Archbishop

This solemn personal presentation of an Archbishop automatically adjusted the attitude of the whole audience in the Church. One felt that he was an Archbishop. His comportment, his conduct, the solemnity that was around him, all geared to his seriousness as a man of dignity, who demands respect from everyone who deals with him.

From time to time the television camera was shot on the audience. All fixed their eyes on him. Since he did not smile at any moment during the Mass, I saw none among the crowd who smiled. They were all preoccupied as to how to behave themselves before such a high person in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

As he preached, he never left his eyes from the written notes. He wanted to be certain that all he had prepared should be delivered. He brought no Paradise to the audience. What a concept people have of the Roman Catholic Archbishop. The little they expected from him was a smile.

I Am Certain I Am Going To Heaven

I am not joking, I mean business. Those who go to hell make their own choice. Nobody is thrown into hell. Those who go to hell go walking, they have decided it throughout their life, and some of them do even boast of it. Why should not some of us who have lived every day, every minute in the presence of God, be forced to go to hell? It is not in our line of thought. I have never cultivated a thought to imagine myself in hell. I am geared for Paradise with all that I am. I am now certain because the thief was assured by our Lord Jesus Christ: “In truth, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

I know that there are those who see pride in such declarations. But it is not pride; it is a conviction and a decision. I have no interest in the stories of the triumph of the devil. I cannot just stand the stories of the devils, though I myself have spoken with the devil more than a thousand times. Nor am I interested to tell the stories of exorcism with gusto.

Guarantees For Going To Heaven

Just two requirements:

1. To love God

2. To love your neighbor

The problem is: What is love? It is a long story. Everybody longs to be loved, going around the world looking for being loved. How much is there love in business? Not every business had bad aims, nor full of cheating.

This is outside my subject. I am not competent in all the intricacies of business. I hate money, except for its proper use. I have lived without valuing money for many months. I am queer, of course I am. That is why I am easily condemned by those who are my friends.

I do not see love except in self destruction. Even giving birth is a pain. But the Bible says then follows joy after the birth of a child. There is nothing that comes without sweat. It cost Jesus more than just pains in His body, He became a nobody: “It was Yahweh's good pleasure to crush Him with pain; if He gives His life as a sin offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His life, and through Him Yahweh’s good pleasure will be done.” (Isaiah 53:10) We conceive love as pleasure, not as pain. The toilsome hours of our mothers crushed by the domestic responsibilities. As we go to them, each one of us believes that that is the only most important act of love, when I demand it from her. One would almost forbid the mother to care for the brother and sister, and rather pay attention to me. That is how we grow up looking for being loved, when as a matter of fact we were pampered by our mother, who gave in to our selfishness.

“He was bearing the sin of many and interceding for the rebellious.” - (Isaiah 53:12)

My guarantee to go to Paradise is not based on the perfect model of self sacrifice as that of Jesus. I am just coming back on the fact that love is not a soft pedaled fruit of human thinking. Nor should I make my readers believe that it is all pleasure, that is love. We were seven children in our family. I have never seen my mother going to bed before we were all in bed, sleeping and forgetting the entire nuisance we have been during the day. We forgot as we went to bed that we have been a nuisance to our mother. I am using the term ‘nuisance,’ not on the part of my mother, but on our part, as we interfered so much when she was busy with other things.

Jesus did not dwell on the actual sufferings he endured; he saw that it was the only way to grab us away from the chains of the devil. It cost Him His earthly life: “Yet ours were the sufferings He was bearing, ours the sorrows He was carrying, while we thought of Him as someone being punished and struck with affliction by God; whereas He was being wounded for our rebellions, crushed because of our guilt; the punishment reconciling us fell on Him, and we have been healed by His bruises.” (Isaiah 53:4~5)

My own life has been a painful experience. When I feel lonely, and recall my mother’s mother craft, I see her throughout her life, a life of pain. It is easy to recall her example and then through faith look at Jesus’ life. The life of Jesus is not only admirable, but terrifying. How He controlled Himself without using His Divine Powers to take revenge on those who persecuted Him. Only God, the Son of Man was adequate to the task given Him but His Heavenly Father on our behalf.

How Much He Loved Us

By using the word ‘Terrifying,” looking at the spirit of endurance of Jesus, I am not shrinking into my skin. I am just being honest, that humanly speaking, one cannot dare say that “I can do it,” as easy as a motion of a finger. Neither was it easy for Jesus, unless one looks at the fact that He banked a lot in the treasury of His Father, to that measure He will demand salvation from His Father on our behalf. Hence as He dies He rightly publicly say, loud enough to be heard by all around the cross: “Forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” At the same time He called the attention of His Father to look at Him as He was suffering. How hard, even in our earthly life, could one be, if one just imagines what is being described in the following lines: “He had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts; He was despised, the lowest of men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, one from whom as if it were, we averted our gaze, despised for whom we had no regard.” (Isaiah 53:2~4) How can one be “familiar with suffering?” This is how we can become Jesuses.

This is the guarantee of my salvation; Jesus banked on it, and put it in the treasury of His Heavenly Father. Whatever He will say or ask His Father on our behalf, he will get it for us. Listen how Saint John Endes puts it: “He tells us that His Father loves us as He, our Lord, loves Him; and that He loves us as the Father loves Him (see John 17:26; 15:9); that He desires that we should be with Him in the heart of the eternal Father and seated with Him on His throne (see Revelation 3:21) – in a word, that we should be one with Him, and perfectly united with Him and His Father (see John 17~23).” Beyond these words of love declaration, one shudders and fails to see if any other dimension of love can be put into better words. No words exist to express love in this way.

What I put at the opening of these paragraphs, - love of God and love of neighbors, Saint John Endes has put it so clearly: “That he desires that we should be with Him in the heart of the eternal Father.” See how much Jesus loves us, as well as His Father. “To Love God and to love our neighbor.”

Our neighbor has no form, when he/she is not loved. He is equal to a stone, a tree, or any noble beast, like a horse or a dog. It is only love that decorates him, and gives him dignity, nobility and respect. If I have no love for him, he can fall at my feet, I move away from him, and leave him in his state, as the story of the Good Samaritan tells us. It is only love which gives value to a human being, and differentiates him from a beast or from any other object.

What becomes of me when I do not love? I do not want to come back to the definition of love. My concept of love is nothing else than self destruction, as long as we live on this planet earth. One who cannot bear suffering will never learn to love. Love is expanding oneself. The deeper the interior life of a man or a woman, the easier it will be to anticipate the weight of forbearance on life. I saw the joy of that Zambian woman who gave birth to fifteen healthy children. In the end she just existed. The weight of child bearing was on her, and it was seen as to how it consumed her. Did she care for her health? She did, but did not give less love and efforts when she gave birth to the last one. Love ought to be stable and steadfast. How I wish I would meet her, and draw as much as I can in order to understand the cost of love. When she looked round the house, she met these thirty eyes, as if they were little electric burbles in the house. The house was full of songs, with the voices according to age, sounding with different tones according to their age. How much the mother already experienced love of neighbor as she dealt with her fifteen children. How I wish women wrote more than they have done so far. We do not know them. Why are they reticent to share real life with us?

“To Love Up To The Extent Of Madness”

No doubt at all Mother Theresa of Calcutta was mad. She was not normal. How could she bow down to the poor of the poorest in the streets of Calcutta and Bombay. Only extreme love of neighbor could drive her to that level of love. It was not just charity, more than that, it was equal to life itself. As I said earlier on, unless she saw in these destroyed human beings, by hunger, poverty, and disease; another figure in them. The Jesus on the Cross, abandoned, left naked, exposed to humanity, despised, and rendered valueless. This is in what consisted the madness of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. In these poor of the poorest, Mother Theresa of Calcutta literally loved God and neighbor. But she had to be mad. What does one get from the poor of the poorest? Even her faith was beyond average. How we wish Mother Theresa of Calcutta should have written her secrets as to how she climbed up such high scales of holiness and love.

Saint Catherine Of Siena On Love Of Neighbor

It is not an imposition or compulsion on the part of God, the love of neighbor. It is to complete the existence of human beings. It is to derive joy from our existence. We ought not to be, if we do not love. We must be convinced that we have no right to demand love from others, if we do not give love to others. Jesus teaches Saint Catherine of Siena the importance of love of neighbor: “You are obliged to love your neighbor as yourself (see Matthew 22:39). And loving him, you ought to help him by praying for him, counseling him, and assisting him both spiritually and temporally. You ought to serve his needs at least with your good will if you have nothing else. Therefore, a person who fails to love his neighbor does not help him and so does himself an injury. He cuts himself off from grace. And he injures his neighbor by depriving him of the benefit of the prayers and of the sweet desires that he is bound to offer to me for him.” (Saint Catherine of Siena: 1347~1380) Being good to my neighbor opens in him/her wells of love of God, learnt from my charitable actions.

Three Persons lose, when one does not love one’s neighbor. We may begin with God. He is the one who expects our prayer and service to our neighbor. He delights in loving our neighbor, expanding ourselves as Jesus did for us throughout His life.

The second person to suffer is the individual himself. Because without loving his neighbor nothing rises to Heaven, as the case of Cain, angry and full of envy against his brother Abel. God could not receive his offering. And God advised him to have control over his instinct of hatred, but he did not heed God’s advice. “Yahweh asked Cain: Why are you angry and downcast? If you are doing right, surely you ought to hold your head high! But if you are not doing right, sin is crouching at the door hungry to get you. You can still master him.” He paid no attention to the words of God and went on doing his thing, murdering his brother Abel. (Genesis 4:6~8)

The third who suffers from lack of love of neighbor is the expectant receiver, to benefit from the services of love from the neighbor. What a pity! So in the end we see Jesus making it so easy, as He explains to Saint Catherine of Siena the importance of the love of neighbor. Love of neighbor joins us into a Trinitarian circle:

• “One who does not love is dead.”

Saint Catherine of Siena, Jesus speaks: “Since a person who fails to love others does no good, it follows that he must do evil. First of all, he harms himself, and then he damages his neighbor. He does not harm me because no evil can touch me except as I count as done to me the evil he does to himself. He injures himself with sin that deprives him for grace….”

Love God and love your neighbor, then you are certain as I am, to go to Paradise, to Heaven. I have before me the madness of charity of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, though I dread just to think of being confronted by the poor of the poorest. I pray that the Lord will continue to sustain me in the endeavors I am doing for the cause of married priests, who are the poor of the poorest in the Catholic Church.

By Archbishop E. Milingo

An Opportunity of God’s Grace.

My Dear Archbishops and Bishops,

Monsignor and Priests, Sisters and Deacon, Ladies and Gentlemen,

They were nice days, spent together. There is that psalm which you all know: “How nice it is to be together Brothers and Sisters. It is like oil flowing on the beard of Aaron, carrying with it a soothing effect.” Having one mind and one heart we put our heads together to forge the new prongs for the Catholic Church of to-morrow. We have already begun to live the Church of to-morrow as soon as the meeting was over.

It was a joy to hear the names of Peter and Paul, as approved leaders of our Movement.

This is how genuine we are in our aims of setting up a Prelature which gives honor and glory to the out-standing Apostles “St. Peter and Paul Catholic Prelature.” We learn the following from St. Peter:

“Your minds, then must be sober and ready for action, put all your hope in the grace brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be shaped by the passions of your old ignorance, but as obedient children, be yourselves holy in all your activity, after the model of the holy one who calls us, since Scripture says:“Be holy, for I am holy.”(St. Peter 1:13-16) Such writing of St. Peter was taken as literally applying to us, who had been made to believe that we were holy, because we were celibate. But it is the more meaningful and demanding on us to-day married priests. Because this holiness is now to be fully shared in our families. As we married, the priestly holiness, touched the outer members of the mystical body, the community we serve.

Then St. Paul, in the letter to the Philippians has the following for us: “Have the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and being one in soul and mind. Do not do anything from selfish ambition, or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble towards each other, never thinking you are better than others. And look out for each others interests, not just for your own.”(Phil. 2:2b-4).

Even if we were only to live on these two scripture quotations from the patrons of our Prelature, we would have enough for our meditations for many days. How freely we shared the discussions. How we valued each one’s contribution. How we felt the importance of each one of us. Let these not be just memories which will come and go away, and easily to be forgotten. Each one’ presence had a value, that is how we made a mystical body, coming from different countries, with different cultural apparatus, but finding ourselves aiming at the same welfare for ourselves and for the whole Church of Jesus Christ. “Ubi caritas est, Deus ibi est,” where there is love, God is there.“Certainly God was among us.”

Encouraging those who have already a service to offer to the community, let them educate their community on what we are: “Roman Catholic married Priests.” We have to assure them that we never lost our priesthood, we have only publicly reassumed our pastoral work.

Aware of the enormous task of a priest to-day, we would like to involve as much as we can the faithful, and invite those who feel they too can fully dedicate themselves to serve the community. We must never hide that striving for holiness is for each one of us in our status and environment.

We all have to be holy, God does not expect it to be less than that.

Holiness is the nature of God’s children, which we are. It is not something to boast of, it is both a duty and obligation.

If we don’t strive at holiness, we are denying the nature of the one who dwells in us, the Holy Spirit. We are ashaming God, whom we call “Our Father.” We are not the imitators of Jesus Christ, whose name we bear, that we are Christians. In all sincerity and honesty by our Christian Vocation, which we have accepted with joy, we ought to live accordingly, by being what we are called to be: “Be holy because I am holy.”

We shall renew the Church, if we shall truly be “The salt of the earth, the light to the world, and the yeast in the world.” It is time to be it.

To come back to the original nature of our Catholic Church, to become the true disciples of Jesus Christ. We are priests, known in other words: “Alter Christus” another Christ.

May God bless you all.

Yours Sincerely,

Arch. E. Milingo.

My Dear Fellow Married Priests in Italy,

Thank you for your e-mail. I would like to make it clear to you that your concept of married priests and ours are different. We are not organizing our married priests to be recognized by Rome that they are priests, in spite of the fact that they are married. We have released those who have been in contact with us from the bondages by which they were bound by the Roman Catholic Church. Our reasons are very profound. And behind it all, we have the Blessed Virgin Mary and the late Holy Father, Blessed Pope John Paul II. It is up to you to believe it or not.

We are not quarreling with your convictions as Associations of Married Priests in Rome. Might be that if this movement started in Europe, then since Europe is used to give orders to others, to teach them, to impose on them their way of thinking, your reaction may be justified. We do not want to put up an arena of theological discussions. We are here to act, and defend our Mother Church, and to prevent her from falling into a precipice, in which already some parts of her body are in.

Our words may sound harsh and bitter, but they are not intended to. It is due to the fact that our Catholic Church was destined to do great things for the Glory of God, and for the salvation of the whole humanity. But not all is lost. Already the bad connotation with the word “Roman,” as we are coming to Rome, it is all for the glory of the same Rome. The Holy Father is aware of our coming, and we do not want to hold meetings on what is not our competence. Moreover, we represent many churches. Our achievement, to our satisfaction is that through our movement many churches have accepted to make Pilgrimage to St. Peter, the head of married priests:

"We believe in One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

We may be reunited with you in spirit, but not that we become you since you are in Rome, and that your world is a “Fac Totum.” The Strasburg Ecumenical Meeting which took place on 22^nd April, 2007; says that Italian Catholics do not feel the necessity of unity with other churches, since the majority in Italy are Catholics.

God Bless You.

Yours Sincerely,

+Archbishop E. Milingo

The Bishop Abbesses

            I have seen their closiers, not their miters.  Today, 1^st of August 2007, I looked for the women saints who had the title “Abbess.”  I found none in the liturgical calendar made after Vatican II.  Women have lost a lot after Vatican Council II.

            The Abbesses of monasteries were autonomous, independent.  They had all the jurisdiction in their monasteries to carry out the liturgical functions, except Mass.  They had solemn liturgies where celebrations demanded the wearing of solemn vestments fitting the occasion.  But today all has to be approved by men whatever exists in these monasteries. Excuse my ignorance if I am not updated.  What I found common to the majority of them is the title: “Virgin - Virgin – Virgin.”  St. Gertrude studied literature and philosophy and was truly a Cistercian monk.  She has only “Virgin”, as a title.  But she was a great woman.  So was St. Brigid of Sweden, a married woman, whose life both as a mother and a religious after the death of her husband, she saw her daughter coming up to holiness, till finally she became a saint known as St. Catherine of Sweden.  An extraordinary woman was St. Brigid.

            It is not the women saints who are looking for public recognition.  But rather fairness to the half of humanity which is crying for justice in the Catholic Church, the WOMEN.  They are not fairly represented in the governing circles of the Roman Catholic Church.  There is no dicastry in the Roman Curia, which is headed by women.  How long will the Catholic Church deprive the people of God the talents hidden in women?

The Spirituality of the Women Foundresses

Of The Religious Congregations

            The church boasts today of many saints.  It is said that with all the methods of making statistics, the Church has failed to count the number of the religious congregations of women.  They are so generous to God and to humanity, and just offer themselves wholly in the work of salvation.  They have love for mankind which carries them to any extent as the needs for human services demand.

            Be it the foundresses and their followers, abide by what God has called them to do in the economic of salvation for mankind.  The heroic actions of many congregations of women are more than edifying.  They cannot all be recorded.  Only mothers are capable to do what they have done, and are still doing.

            Let us look at a deep thought of a woman saint, meditating on the following words of Psalm 139:1-3.  The general title of her meditation is: “Living in God’s presence, by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, 1774-1821: “What is most striking in this is that when we sin, we not only sin in the presence of God, but in God Himself, for since He is the source of motion and life, it follows that the sinner uses concurrence of God Himself to offend and sin against Him, turning the means of life: health, time, the powers of nature and space to this horrid perversion and abuse against their Almighty Giver.”  How many of us have looked at sin through the spiritual eyes of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.  What she says is clear naked truth, there is no need to consider that what she says comes from a woman.  What a beautiful conclusion she makes of her reflection on sin: “What a deep thought,” she says, “that God Himself is the very life of our being.  He dwells in the soul of each one of us as in His own element.”  But why do we forget Him when we are sinning?  We put a blind-folder on His face so that we can sin freely.  St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, putting herself in the shoes of God, felt the pinch of sinning as we turn our face against God.  We are grateful to her as she put it so simply as to make us understand how we ignore God who is with us and in us when we sin.

            Only a woman could say what St. Catherine of Siena said during her high spiritual moods, as to what extent she would go to prevent people from going to hell: “Lord,” she prayed, “let me stand at the gates of hell and stop anyone from entering by telling each of them, ‘where are you going, poor fool?  Turn back!  Make a good confession and save your soul.  Don’t come here, to be lost for all eternity.”  This is a woman speaking, sharing with us what she feels of what it means to go to hell. She expresses in a simple way, but what she says contains how she felt for people who were not serious about their salvation.  She would be ready to set up a school at the door of hell, and tell them the danger of what it means to lose  one’s soul into hell.

            It is to her merits that we still have the Pope residing at Rome, since he left Avignon, France.  How poorly she was treated when she arrived in France to bring the Pope back to Rome.  She was in her thirties, a young woman.  Speaking with authority to the papal guards that she had a mission to carry out by divine orders to bring the Pope to Rome.  They notified the parents of the pope that Catherine had come to collect the Pope to go back to Rome.  The Pope’s father swore: “Not on my back, till you jump my body.  You will not go back to Rome.”  St. Catherine looked at the Pope and said: “Holy Father, go on, break the oath of your father, cross his body, jump.”  By doing so he had to choose to belong to God or to his earthly father.  Courageously he went ahead and jumped over his father’s body.  She gave an order to the Pope not to delay as far as up to a fixed moment, which she made the Pope agree to.  He had to enter Rome with simplicity on a white horse or mule, but not with two thousand soldiers.  Who says that a woman is a weakling?  St. Catherine of Siena did not use the masculine philosophy and theology to order the Pope to come back to Rome.  She had no male advisers to make syllogisms in order to make the Pope understand the mission she had to carry out on behalf of the whole Church.

            A woman who was illiterate, having fifteen secretaries, writing letters to any ecclesiastical dignitary or head of state.  She faced soldiers who came to invade her convent.  She faces them and they are disarmed with her presence.  She writes a terrible letter to Curia Romana, blaming them for the many deviations which had made inroads in God’s Holy Church.

            Her last days, as she moved from her Dominican residence in Rome, going to St. Peter to pray, her ascetical life reduced her to such a physical weakness that people were afraid that as she walked along, she would be swept away by the wind.  She was very thin and weak.  But a woman with spiritual guts above the matriculated doctors of philosophy and theology.  She later on knew how to read and write by a miracle.  How many Catherines of Siena have been blocked to display their God given gifts under the pretext: “wait till the Church will discern as to whether your gift is truly charismatic from God or a mere natural phenomenon.”  Till they have died.

            The secret of Fatima?  Why imprison Sister Lucia?  She had never enjoyed a normal natural life.  On the other hand still today nobody knows where the truth lies about the secret of Fatima.

            You don’t discern by condemning to death St. Joan of Arc?  Neither do you discern by burning Savanarola, and throw his ashes in the Florence River?  You don’t discern by condemning with laicization 150,000 priests of God and happily sit back on a sofa watching t.v. while these thousands of priests are languishing in different ways.  And you say: “Thy kingdom come.”  For you it is there, since you have comfort and power and authority.  We don’t go into details about what the women have endured under this discernment.  How, after St. Theresa of Avilla was sent back after consulting Rome on matters very important for the renewal of the Carmelite life.  One day she was heard to say: “Why God did you make me a woman?”  She meant that all that she endured was due to the Catholic Church prejudice against women.  What was it?  The women were never treated as adults.  They could reason as men reason.  They had to depend on “a masculine thought, which came from a prepared mind.”

            In Ireland, some years back in the sixties when I was studying there, I went to a family which had invited me to have supper at their home.  To my surprise the only woman in the family was the mother.  She had given birth to nine boys.  Being the treasurer of the home, she displayed her double thinking as a woman and a man.  She watched the nine boys and they were coming up to a difficult biological stage.  She controlled their possible wayward behaviour.  They understood a lot more their mother’s instructions, since they knew that she, as a woman, had no ambition to trade her womanhood for masculinity. But that when she gave advice to them it was for their own personal benefit as boys.

            It was edifying to watch the boys being on the alert as to what next the mother had need of, and on whom will she call next?  A woman is able to bring up and give proper education to both sexes with efficacy.  The boys did not become over effeminate.  For them the commander of the house was the mother.  The father from time to time dropped in a wise word to compliment the mother’s teaching.  The Lord Almighty enlightened the woman as a mother to all that was necessary for their masculine education.   They saw as well how the father respected the mother, never contradicting her laws of the home, the queen mother of the home.  Is it possible?  Yes, a woman trusted and given opportunity becomes herself, and displays, like a peacock with extended feathers, the hidden beauty of her nature.

            Let me conclude on this marvelous lady with the words of the son of God as it is written by St. Bridget of Sweden.  She received this message: “The son of God said to the spouse (St. Bridget): “What is true wisdom that comes from God?  It consists not in the simplicity of the poor, nor in the merit of the learned, but in a truly Christian life.  The true lover of wisdom is the one who each day learns to die well, who frequently reflects upon the state in which he may be found at the hour of death; who remembers the judgment that follows it, when all that he has done will be reviewed and no fault will remain unpunished.”

            The mother with the nine boys became famous by carrying out well her motherly duties in the home.  She might have had academic qualifications, but what made her famous was the fact that she was faithful to her family, providing them with all that they needed.  She demonstrated the beauty of her Christian faith: “Through all the mothers who introduced their children to the Kingdom of God and true human life in society – may your Church bring mankind to eternal life and salvation.  We pray to the Lord.”

The Women Religious Congregations

            If ever the Christian France had something to boast of, they brought Catholicism to Quebec, Canada.  At one time the women religious upheld such a high percentage of the number of religious as high as 98%.  Today they are only 2%.  Frustration from Vatican Council II.

            It was not only the Canadian nuns who felt they were treated as immature persons, but many other women religious congregations felt the pinch for the unjust treatment.  One fact which came out publicly was the fact that while preparing proposals for the agenda of international women religious meetings in Rome, what they had prepared underwent a double check.  All was shaped according to the mental frame of Curia Romana the masculine mind.  They found out that they had only to chew the cud, already prepared for them.  This was very humiliating to all women religious.  Hence many congregations split into small groups.  Bought apartments to live in, three or five together.  They kept their salaries for their sustenance.  The consequence many left religious life.

            In one big house where there remained two old sisters, they were asked: “How long will you remain alone?”  They answered” We want to be certain that our religious congregation remains, as long as we live, it exists.”

The Church Bears The Consequences

While the People of God Are Deprived of Services

            Those were the days, when students remember, when they were taught by the Ursuline sisters, the Dominicans, the Daughters of wisdom, the Si77sters of Charity, and many others whose influence was stamped into the souls of their students.  Not only were there sisters educators, there were as well sisters of Mercy involved in many social activities, including hospitals and orphanages.  Then the missionary sisters of Africa, white sisters, who adapted themselves to any situation in the missions.  There were women religious congregations as many as human needs.

            Is the mistake made by the masculine race amendable?  I believe that the offence is forgivable, because women are mothers.  They sometimes look at men as little children with whom they cannot reason.  Men are affected by fixation about women.  They need a forty days retreat to undo the fixation.

            But a way must be found to reconcile with women.  I have no advice to give to women.  I too was a man in authority.  I do not want to make any justification for what I did to women then.  I am certain that it is due to my age that I look back and see what stupidities I did as I sat on the chair of Moses.  But you all know that not all the Moses are true Moseses.  There was only one Moses who got direct guidance from God.  Poor me, I cannot claim anything in that line.  Like the publican, without raising my head, I say “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” and conclude: “Forgive me Lord, for I knew not what I was doing.”

By Archbishop E. Milingo

(foto ©sacerdoti sposati)

What a it is to receive excuses from married priests, due to their fixed  ideas against Rev. Moon. Why not come to face the Unificationist  theologians, as we did during the international symposium? If they are truly theologians, let them come and compare their beliefs with what the  Unificationists believe. It is a very poor attitude; pure prejudice. What  will they say if they were to meet a Buddhist, who believes that the word  "God" is a mental creation of Christians. But Buddhists are considered  living Saints in Asia. Stop talking against Rev. Moon, if you do not want  to air your views publicly to the assembly. Buddhists are not atheists, but they will not stand you if you mention God. To them, Buddha is everything and these people take up 25% of the population of Korea.
 
When will Catholic theologians become human loving? The masculine theology with its arrogance to judge and consider every believer other than Catholic to be a fool is certainly not divine. They have the right to  judge so they believe, to condemn, and spread lies about doctrines which  they do not understand. This is intellectual idolatry of their own  beliefs.
 
Let the Italian Married Priests, who are at the source of Catholic  theology in Rome, come to help us whom they believe that we have put  ourselves under the claws of the devil. The morality of the  Unificationists as a body and a community of believers in their "Devine  Principle" is very high. They have absolute sexual morality, do not drink
alcohol, live in poverty, models of family, love living for others, rooted  in Jesus Christ. If we talk exaggerations, we too are accused of  exaggerating the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But one as to have patience and show them that there is no exaggeration. Mary is the new Eve, Mother of Humanity. How long will it take intellectual upper class of the Catholic Church come down to the level of the grass root? If you have  truly learnt to love as God loves, He condemns nobody. He loves everyone with his defects. "Don't judge" he says, "Leave the judgment to me."
"Don't condemn anyone, it is I who have the last word." Have we Catholics ever measured the distance covered by our charity. If our Catholic charity does not go further than our nose, than we are lost.
 
Yours Sincerely,
Archbishop E. Milingo