Vatican City ? A Vatican summit led by Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed mandatory celibacy for priests Thursday, rebuffing a high-profile crusade by a married African archbishop who has been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

In a statement after the three-hour meeting, the Vatican said: “The value of the choice of priestly celibacy, according to Catholic tradition, has been reaffirmed.”

In announcing the summit earlier this week, the Vatican said it would examine “the situation created by the disobedience of Monsignor Emmanuel Milingo.”

Milingo, of Zambia, incurred automatic excommunication in September when he ordained four married American men as bishops in defiance of the Vatican. He already had drawn the Vatican’s ire in 2001, when he took a South Korean woman as his wife in a group wedding ceremony of the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.