Married Priests Now!

Married Priests Now! (MPN) is an advocacy group headed by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, a Zambian prelate. MPN is a liberal Catholic organization calling for relaxing the rules concerning marriage in the Latin Rite Catholic priesthood. Milingo believes, "There is no more important healing than the reconciliation of 150,000 married priests with the 'Mother Church,' and the healing of a Church in crisis through renewing marriage and family."U.S. Newswire: Archbishop Milingo: 'Married Priesthood Now'; Healer Missing from Italy Emerges in U.S., Proclaims End to Mandatory Celibacy, July 12, 2006
==Automatic excommunication==
Archbishop Milingo garnered world attention in September 2006 when he validly but illicitly ordained four married men (Rev. George Augustus Stallings Jr. of Washington; Peter Paul Brennan of New York; Patrick Trujillo of Newark, New Jersey; and Joseph Gouthro of Las Vegas, Nevada) 
as bishops.Pope to hold summit on married priests, November 14, 2006 Milingo reportedly planned to hold a meeting in December 2006 of more than 1,000 married Catholic priests, in New York.BBC News: Vatican stands by celibacy ruling, November 16, 2006 Due to Milingo's excommunication and his connection with non-Catholic religious leader Sun Myung Moon, two groups of former Catholic priests, who are pushing for a married priesthood, issued warnings against MPN.CNA: Married former priests warn against Milingo's group, December 8, 2006
According to Catholic Canon Law, the act of creating a bishop without the permission of the Pope incurs an automatic excommunication.Holy See: Canon 1382, Code of Canon Law, translat. by Canon Law Society of America, 1998
==Policy of laicizations==
Archbishop Paul Lebeaupin warned in 2009 that Catholic priests who had joined the Married Priests Now sect could be declared laymen by the Church, which would add a new penalty to Milingo's latae sententiae excommunication.Married priests may be expelled On December 17, 2009, the Holy See announced that Milingo had been defrocked and that he was currently a layman, calling him Mister Milingo.Vatican defrocks exorcist archbishop who married
==See also==
*International Federation of Married Catholic Priests
==References==
==External links==
* Married Priests Now Italian website.
* Married Priests Now American website.
* Married Priests USA on Yahoo! Groups
* Married Priests USA on Facebook
Category:Catholics not in communion with Rome
Category:Roman Catholic Church history
Category:Canon law