Vatican says archbishop will see wife

ROME, Italy -- A Catholic archbishop whose marriage scandalised the Catholic church has agreed to meet his wife after a two-week spiritual retreat, according to the Vatican.

Emmanuel Milingo, 71, "will meet Maria Sung to communicate his decisions to her," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced on Wednesday.

Maria Sung, a 43-year-old acupuncturist, has accused the Vatican of setting unacceptable conditions on any meeting.

But Navarro-Valls said Milingo, 71, had made the decision to meet with Sung and set the conditions "in total liberty."

He said: "The Holy See cannot and does not want to impose anything upon the conscience of the archbishop."

His statement did not say when the couple would meet or whether it would be in private, something Sung has demanded.

Sung's spokesman, the Rev Phillip Schanker, said the Vatican had agreed on Tuesday to a private meeting, then backed away from that commitment.

He also said the Vatican had set six conditions for the meeting, but would not disclose what they were.

"We are extremely disappointed," said Schanker, an official of the Rev Sun Myung Moon's Family Federation for World Peace and Unification Movement.

The South Korean ambassador to the Vatican has been trying for days to arrange a meeting between the Zambian archbishop and his wife, who has been on a hunger strike since August 14.

"Maria is fasting for one purpose -- for a private meeting with her husband. Nothing else can be discussed," said Schanker.

Milingo and Sung were married at a May 27 group wedding in New York conducted by Moon.

Sung says she has not heard from Milingo since August 8, the day after the archbishop met with Pope John Paul II after the Vatican threatened to force him to leave the church if he did not leave Sung.

Late last week she ended a week of speculation that she was pregnant.

She told a press conference on Friday: "I'm relieved by the fact that I do not have to care about a child, so I can focus with all my spirit and heart to find my husband."

Earlier this month, the Vatican released what it said was a handwritten, signed letter from Milingo in which he said he had decided to return to the church and leave his wife.

Since Milingo disappeared from public sight, the Vatican has not disclosed his whereabouts, saying only that he is on a spiritual retreat and that he should be left alone to pray.