Archbishop Courts Trouble
And a Wife

By DEREK ROSE
Daily News Staff Writer

aying he was answering a calling from God, a maverick Roman Catholic archbishop courted excommunication yesterday by marrying a Korean acupuncturist at a ceremony performed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and his bride were among some 60 couples who took part in a mass wedding sponsored by Rev. Moon's Unification Church at the Hilton Hotel in midtown.

"I'm not going against the Catholic Church," Milingo insisted yesterday. "Jesus said himself, 'Love one another.'"

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and bride Maria Sung were among 60 couples wed yesterday in a ceremony by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

He called priestly celibacy an "unreachable standard" that contributes to homosexuality among priests and pregnancy among nuns.

The marriage was arranged by Rev. Moon, who introduced Milingo to his bride, a Moon follower, just last Friday.

The 71-year-old Milingo referred to 43-year-old Maria Sung as his "twin soul" and compared her face to the biblical Eve's. Neither speaks the other's native language, but they both speak Italian.

Milingo said he has been celibate since his ordination as a priest in 1958, but now even hopes to father children, "if God will allow. Because even Abraham, at 100, was a father."

After performing faith healings and impromptu exorcisms in the Archdiocese of Lusaka, Zambia, Milingo resigned under pressure in 1983 and was transferred to the Vatican.

Milingo said he was "pinned to the wall" there, ridiculed and not allowed to say Mass in Vatican churches.

The Holy See is expected to excommunicate him, although Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls declined to comment yesterday "until we hear something directly from Milingo."

Milingo said he was not concerned about that possibility.

"It doesn't affect me," he said, adding he would still perform Catholic services and has not joined Moon's church.

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