According to the Vatican yesterday, Archbishop Milingo, crucifix slightly askew over his ample belly and hands together on his lap, on Wednesday sat in a row of other bishops behind Pope John Paul II during an audience for the Focolare Movement.
The Movement is credited with negotiating his return after the 2001 elopement.
The Vatican noted that it was the first time he had been seen in public in the Vatican in nearly three years.
After Vatican officials stopped him from appearing at a press conference in November, he left unexpectedly for Northern Italy to undergo medical exams sparking rumours that he was contemplating moving from where Church officials have him under 'house arrest' in a Rome-area monastery.
He then left for Zambia, and according to news reports, Vatican officials knew but did not authorise Archbishop Milingo's trip home.
Church officials also did not know when he planned to return.
Archbishop Milingo, who has been living quietly in a 13th century monastery south of Rome in the last two years since he returned to the Catholic Church, attended Pope John Paul II's general audience with bishops from an ecumenical group of which he is a member.
The former archbishop of Lusaka disappeared from the Vatican in 2001 to marry Maria Sung, a 43-year-old Korean woman whom Moon, the controversial South Korean-born evangelist, had chosen for him.
Pope John Paul II managed to bring him back into the fold a few months later, but Archbishop Milingo has been kept out of the public eye ever since.
Italian newspapers reported that Maria Sung had not given up on her short-lived marriage. She reportedly went to Italy and tried to visit Archbishop Milingo during his recent hospitalisation but police guarding the Archbishop refused to let her in.