‘Milingo cult’ is a journalistic expression for the network of organizations, religious orders, and foundations founded and headed by the controversial Catholic archbishop Emmanuel Milingo (see Milingo, Emmanuel). In fact, the expression ‘cult’ is inappropriate, since most of these organizations are officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and none of them followed Milingo when he briefly left the Catholic fold for Rever-end Moon’s Unification Church/Moonies in 2001. Some of these organizations remain controversial nonetheless.
Milingo founded the Zambia Helpers Society when he was a parish priest in Chipata, Zambia, from 1963-6. A charitable organization, the Society raised funds in Europe to help humanitarian projects in Zambia, including a farm and a hospital. Later, when Milingo came to Italy in 1983, the Society was helped by nationally famous businessmen, including Giuseppe Volonterio, who came in touch with Milingo through his healing ministry. They helped Milingo in 2000 to reorganize his various fund-raising and charitable activities (including an Emmanuel Milingo Foundation, then headquartered near Milan) under the umbrella of a non-profit company known as Pamo. The Zambia Helpers Society and Pamo managed to avoid most of the controversies associated with Milingo, although they receive a significant amount of funding from Milingo’s other organizations. Milingo founded his first female religious order, the Daughters of the Redeemer, between 1966 and 1969. It was duly recognized by the Catholic Church in Zambia, and currently includes some thirty Sisters working in schools and hospitals. A male branch, the Brothers of St John the Baptist, is still awaiting full recognition in Zambia, although most of the Brothers of this small order currently live in Italy.
More controversial is the Pious Union of the Daughters of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, founded in Kenya and recognized by the Catholic diocese of Muranga. In addition to their presence in Kenya, these Sisters have a small convent in Zagarolo, near Rome, where Milingo took residence in 2002. One of the Kenyan Sisters, Sr Anna Ali, claimed from 1987 on to have received hundreds of messages from Jesus Christ, known as ‘Divine Appeals’. Some of them express conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church being under threat by Satanists, and by ‘Freemasons and their apostate priest-collaborators’, who have so angered the Lord that a time of ‘Divine Justice’ is at hand. Both the Satanist and Freemason conspiracy theories, and the apocalyptic and millenarian prophecies, were typical of Milingo’s Italian preaching in the 1990s. Although Milingo’s theology has never been subject to in-depth studies (including by Catholic authorities, who have preferred to focus instead on his ‘strange’ liturgical practices and public exorcisms), it appears that some of his ideas on the Second Coming were, at that time, closer to Evangelical millenarianism (see Millenarianism) than to Catholic orthodoxy. Milingo’s ideas about a Satanist and Masonic takeover of the Catholic Church, also led him to participate in the activities of Father Nicholas Gruner, the leader of the International Fatima Rosary Crusade (IFRC), a fringe Catholic group repeatedly denounced by Rome as a non-Catholic cult (see Cult and New Religions). The same apocalyptic ideas may have played a role in Milingo’s contact with Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, which led to the incidents of Summer 2001 described in the entry on Milingo (see Milingo, Emmanuel).
Well beyond his religious orders and the charitable foundations, Milingo established a large network of followers in Italy in the 1990s, quite independent of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and often very critical of Catholic bishops who tried to restrict his public healing and deliverance activities in their dioceses. During the events of summer 2001, it became clear that there were three factions among the followers of this controversial Archbishop. Only a handful were in favour of Milingo’s relation with the Unification Church, while a large majority, including the leadership of the various associations and foundations, advocated his return to the Catholic Church. A third party, however, wanted Milingo to denounce as equally manipulative both the Unification Church and the Catholic hierarchy who had ‘persecuted’ him. This seems to have been the agenda of painter Alba Vitali and businessman Maurizio Bisantis, who literally ‘kidnapped’ Milingo upon his arrival in Italy from the US in August 2001. Eventually, after meeting Pope John Paul II on 7 August, Milingo returned to the Catholic fold. Under Vatican supervision, what some media still call the ‘Milingo cult’ was slowly integrated into Catholic orthodoxy during 2001-2, although not all theological problems connected with some of his teachings appear to have been fully resolved.
