The questions about exactly what the deal is with the "bishops" ordained by Milingo on Saturday are still unanswered. At this point, I've not seen anything really substantive, looking at all the elements in one spot, but for now, check out this post from yesterday for some initial reactions, keep your eye on canonist Ed Peters' blog, as well, where he offered a final thought:
The Zenit article from this evening (Code: ZE06092606) leaves little doubt that Holy See saw in Milingo's actions at the least a pseudo-ordination of men who claimed to having already been (illicitly) ordained to the episcopate (making Milingo's action sacrilegious, to boot, per 1983 CIC 845.1), and that the excommunication under 1983 CIC 1382 followed. This argues for a wider interpretation of the penal norm than one would have suspected a few days ago, and I think, for the reasons I offered above, it makes sense.
A word on the coverage: it's been rather muted - I get a sense that the media is seeing it as a unique, sort of crazy situation, with probably limited consequences. But the one thing I haven't seen in the past couple days of coverage are any reminders of the ties of the Unification Church to this series of events, except for Milingo's marriage. I am rather at a loss to understand why no one is exploring this - the one exception being AP religion reporter Rachel Zoll, who filed a story a week ago in which she attempted to connect some dots:
Some American advocates for married priests have kept their distance from Milingo, concerned about his ties with Moon's Unification Church. The Rev. Dairo Ferrabolli of Brazil, a married priest working with the archbishop, vehemently denied an ongoing link between Milingo and Moon.
"He got his wife and now it's over," Ferrabolli said Sunday.
But in a packet of statements the archbishop distributed to the conference participants, he said that he traveled to Korea this year "to join the many Catholics and Catholic married priests who are in the Unification movement."
Married Priests Now! paid for the hotel rooms and meals of the couples, who came from the United States, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and elsewhere. Asked if Moon covered the costs, Milingo said, "This we do not talk about."
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