Vatican City ? Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the charismatic Zambian prelate who defied the Holy See by getting married in 2001, has been excommunicated after installing four married men as bishops, the Vatican said Tuesday.

Although Vatican authorities, including the late Pope John Paul II, had tried for years to coax Milingo into mending his ways, Rome lost patience with him over the unauthorized ordinations, which threaten papal authority.

The Vatican said the 76-year-old prelate was “automatically excommunicated” under church law for the ordinations Sunday at a church in Washington, D.C.