The renegade archbishop who married an acupuncturist has blown open the door on the steamiest debate in the Roman Catholic Church: the Vatican's insistence on celibacy for almost all of its priests.
It is not clear why Emmanuel Milingo, 71, former archbishop of Lusaka, chose to wed a woman nearly 30 years his junior whose identity he discovered only two days before Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church performed the marriage ceremony in a New York hotel Sunday.
But the Vatican's reaction yesterday -- announcing that Archbishop Milingo will face "foreseen canonical sanctions" and is no longer to be considered a bishop of the church -- succeeded spectacularly in focusing attention on priestly celibacy and its fallout.
By authoritative estimates, about 100,000 priests have resigned from the church over the past 25 years, most citing their desire to get married as the primary cause for leaving. There are 400,000 active Catholic priests worldwide.
About 4,000 priests have left the church in Canada over the same period, most to get married.
The exodus is so great that Corpus Canada, the Canadian branch of an international organization of married Catholic priests, says that 40 per cent of the remaining clergymen in the United States and Canada are homosexual. The church rejects this figure, saying it is between 10 per cent and 13 per cent.
The shortage of priests in countries such as Canada and the United States is acute, and in some cases, priests from Europe and Asia have been brought over to fill the gaps.
The celibacy rule for Catholic priests has been in place since the 1100s. It is considered a discipline -- an administrative matter -- rather than an official or definitive teaching of the church. It could be changed, but Pope John Paul II has rejected all entreaties to reconsider it.
Interestingly, however, the pontiff has put out the welcome mat for married Anglican priests who want to come over to Catholicism in protest against the Anglican church's decision to ordain women as priests, and he has had no problem with married priests in Eastern rite churches that are in full communion with Rome.
There are married priests in the Catholic church in Canada, most if not all of them former Anglicans. And in some countries in South America and Africa, there are illicit but open unions between active priests and women that the official church largely ignores.
More than 80 per cent of priests in Peru, for example, are thought to have wives, following a centuries-old tradition of non-celibacy in Andean culture. A group called the Latin American Association of Married Priests says it has chapters in 11 countries.
In fact, married priests -- both inside and outside the church -- gather for an international convention every three years. Remi de Roo, the retired Catholic bishop of Victoria and one of the church's most progressive leaders, agreed to address the 1998 convention in Atlanta, but at the last moment the Vatican ordered him not to.
Many of the Canadian priests who have left the church have tried to continue practising some priestly activities, but the church essentially controls what activities a priest can engage in.
Corpus was started in the United States in the 1970s to give support to priests who resigned from active ministry. It is an acronym for Corps of Reserve Priests United for Service.
Over the years, it evolved into an organization advising married priests on what services they can offer. Corpus also acts as a lobby group to bring pressure on the Vatican to redefine celibacy as optional rather than mandatory.
Corpus Canada has directed its energies to offering its members as spiritual directors to small faith-based groups whose members are considered "unchurched" or lapsed Catholics, but who are interested in deepening their own spirituality.
Rev. Francois Brassard, of Ladysmith, B.C., resigned from the institutional church 30 years ago. He married Connie Kurtenbach, a former Edmonton nun whom he met in Toronto where they were both training to be psychotherapists.
Father Brassard joins small groups in their homes, where he celebrates mass (something he cannot do in a Catholic church) and initiates discussions on interpretations of Scripture.
"They are people who want something more intimate than they find at church," he said. "They are interested in spiritual growth. They are people who have walked out of their churches, or are bored with what is happening in their churches or have difficulty with the church over divorce and its position on women and gays."
He says the shortage of active priests in the church is a message from the Holy Spirit -- the presence of God in the world -- that the priesthood has to change.