The beginning of Catholicism in Uganda

As the British sought to control Egypt, they took Uganda to secure the Nile. In almost the same spirit, when Archbishop Lavigerie founded the White Father’s institute in Algeria, he sought ways of countering the activities of King Leopald’s International Africa institute.
Lavigerie was also concerned with the influence of the Protestants and the Freemasons and the lack of support from the European powers to spread Catholicism into Central Africa. Buganda was the suitable destination as a Launchpad for his mission.

On February 17, 1879, two French men, Father Simeon Lourdel and Brother Amans Delmas, both members of Society of Missionaries of Africa, touched at Entebbe port, then known as Kyattale.
They belonged to the White Fathers institute, which had been founded in Algiers by Archbishop Lavigerie 11 years earlier. Their arrival in Uganda set the ball rolling for the start of Catholicism in Buganda, and later in the country that was formed 83 years later.
The mission to Buganda, where the catholic missionaries first pitched camp, was not in the interest of winning souls.

The proponent of the Buganda mission, Archbishop Lavigerie, was targeting the area as a base for another part of Africa. He, like the British, was drawn to Uganda or Buganda because of its strategic location.
According to the Missionaries of Africa series number nine, Lavigerie considered Buganda as one of the points of departure for the evangelisation of the interior of Equatorial Africa.

As he bade farewell to the first group to come to Uganda, Lavigerie had specific rules he gave them.
“The king would be one of the first converts, whose conversion would bring about that of all his people,” Lavigerie instructed the missionaries.
In the communication authored on February 10, 1881, called the Missionaries Instructions, Lavigerie said: “By winning over the chief, you will do more for the progress of the mission than if you won over one-by-one hundreds of poor blacks.”

With the warm reception the missionaries received at the Buganda palace, they hoped for the best. But their hope soon evaporated when they realised that the Kabaka’s favour of the three religious groups, all fighting for his attention, kept on wavering from one to another.
Writing in the book The Catholic Church in the Buddu Province of Buganda, 1879-1925, Fr John Mary Waligo said: “In September 1879, he (Kabaka Muteesa) asked the Anglican missionaries to baptise him; in October, he made the same request of the Catholics; in November, the Christian missionaries discovered that he was praying with the Muslims, and in December of the same year he recalled the adepts of the traditional religion.”

In the beginning
The king’s court was their initial place of aboard as the king’s special guests. At the time they were using Swahili and Arabic, which they had picked from the coast and from their porters as the medium of communication.
Even when they got to Buganda before implementing what Lavigerie had instructed them, Swahili was the medium of communication and this trickled down to the writing of the first catechism which has some of the words being direct Swahili words. Lavigerie had instructed them to learn Luganda once they reach Buganda.

During their stay at the court, the missionaries initially used Swahili, and sometimes Arabic as they learnt Luganda as per the instruction from Algiers.
According to page 10 of the Missionaries Instructions, Lavigerie said: “I wish that, as soon as possible, and at the latest, six months after reaching the mission, all the missionaries should speak among themselves only the language of the tribes among whom they reside.”
Less than a year upon arrival in Buganda, they had developed a manuscript for the Luganda catechist which was published in Algiers in 1881 under the title Petit Catéchisme En Langue Kiganda, loosely translated as little catechism in Luganda language.

According to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda and the Organisation of the Catechumante 1879-1914, “A number of words were simply transcribed from Latin, like sakramentu and misa to mean sakaramentu and misa in Luganda (sacrament and mass respectively) .
Others were taken from Kiswahili, like dini (religion), sala (prayer) and malaika (angel).
For God, the missionaries first chose Katonda, the name of Lubaale, the most important and powerful of the gods known in traditional Baganda religion.

For Jesus Christ, they chose the Arabic name Aisa Masiya. This name was used by the local Muslims and would be used in Uganda until 1907 when Bishop Streicher ordered that it be changed to Yesu Christu.
With the catechist in place, the missionaries, both Catholics and Anglicans, turned their focus on teaching people who to read. As a result, the first local converts were known as basomesa (teachers) because they were the ones who could read and teach others.

The first converts
Writing in the book Le Veux Les débuts de la Mission de l’Ouganda, (The Beginners of the Mission of Uganda), Lavigerie said: “After only four or five months of instruction, three adults and a youth were baptised. These were Paolo Nlubanwa and his brother Petro Ddamulira, Yosefu Lwanga, and Leon, the last two being ransomed slaves. Four other adults followed them on May 14, 1880.”

Much as the missionaries came to win as many souls as they could, when it came to baptism training, it was not an open affair.
Baptism candidates had to be evaluated on certain conditions like good moral conduct, understanding the first catechism and the promise to die rather than deny their faith.
Fortunately, the first baptism occurred before the new instructions by Lavigerie reached Buganda.
In his instruction, Lavigerie had directed that training would take up to four years before one can become a baptised Catholic.

“I forbid you to administer baptism, even after four years, to anyone who does not offer serious moral guarantees of perseverance, particularly in abandoning polygamy for good,” Lavigerie wrote.
However, in a letter dated June 6, 1880, fathers Livinhac and Lourdel wrote back to Lavigerie, saying: “The Baganda are more intelligent than the people of other tribes, they already possess some idea of the primary truths, and furthermore it is impossible not to say something rapidly about the mysteries of the faith….”

In their letter, which had a protest tone, they went on to say ‘how can we teach the great truths of the faith for two years to people who come two or three times a day for instruction, without speaking of our Saviour Jesus Christ? If we reject them, they will cease to come.’
‘What reply are we to give to those who ask why our religion alone is good? Don’t the Arabs and the Protestants also claim to teach the rules of morality? Don’t they teach about God who rewards, and the immortality of the soul? Either we must say these religions are good. If the poor Blacks find nothing more with us than with the Arabs and the Protestants, why should they come to us?’

They carried on with the teaching and baptising new converts in defiance of their archbishop, though the baptism was done cautiously.
In April and May 1882, they baptised Mukasa Balikuddembe and Kaggwa, these two went on to become some of the martyrs. Some chiefs like Luka Banabakinti and Matia Kalemba also got baptised.
By November 1882, three years after the arrival of the Catholic missionaries, the head of the team in Uganda, Fr Livinhac, declared that 19 locals had been baptised.

1882 departure
When the missionaries came to Uganda, one thing they never planned for was leaving. They had a mission which was more of a life time mission.
However, during their first year in Uganda, they seemed not impressed with the diet at the royal courts.
Writing in the Chronicle Quarterly, Lavigerie said: “Uganda seems to me much more healthy than all the other countries we passed through. Our diet is less than ideal: Meat and bananas, bananas and bananas. That’s the menu at every meal.”

The diet seemed not ideal for the missionaries and they started growing their own vegetables. This they added on another responsibility of starting an orphanage. It was Livinhac’s idea to start an orphanage, not as a village, but to turn them into African ‘doctor-catechist’.
By the end of their first year in Uganda, they had managed to collect up to 30 boys, most of them freed slaves. The White Fathers called the freed slaves ‘orphans’.

Their 1881 departure was rooted in the creation of an orphanage. In the middle of 1882, the missionaries found that some of the boys were engaging in homosexual activity. Their worst disappointment came from the knowledge that this form of “moral corruption came from Christians and catechumens,” according to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda and the Organisation of the Catechumante 1879-1914.
At this point, they decided unanimously to leave Buganda on a journey back to Europe.
Much as they left three years later, they had sown the seeds of the faith. The converts they had baptised went on to become future chiefs.
Some of them in the future took on the destiny of the faith in the country.

About the missionaries

Simeon Lourdel (1853-1890)
Popularly known as Mapeera by the Baganda, he is considered as the apostle of Uganda. Born in northern France, he was ordained priest in 1877 and reached Uganda when he was only 25 years old.
From the start, Lourdel exercised great influence. His ability to learn the Luganda language, his personality and his influence with the Kabaka and at the court made him the de facto leader of the group. He worked in Uganda for seven and half years and died at Rubaga on May 12, 1890.

Léon Livinhac (1846-1922)
Born in the diocese of Rodez in the Auvergne, France, he was ordained priest in 1873 and came to Uganda when he was 28 years old. He was the leader of the first team of Catholic missionaries to come to Uganda, where he worked for four years.
Through his decisions on the methods of evangelisation and the division of responsibilities among the missionaries, Livinhac had a decisive influence on the beginnings of the mission. He went on to become the first bishop in Uganda, ordained in 1884.

In 1890, after founding a mission on the Sese Islands, he returned to Algiers where he became vicar general of Archbishop Lavigerie, with responsibility for all the White Fathers. On Lavigerie’s death, he became their superior general, and was to fill this post until his death in 1922.

Amans Delmas (1852- 1895)
He was 27 years old when he came to Uganda with Father Lourdel. He was a lay brother in the Society of Missionaries of Africa, not a priest, as he had not pronounced his final vows. This he did while in Uganda in October 1879.
He worked in Uganda for 12 years. He died at Bagamoyo on his way back to Europe in January 1895.

Chronology of events
February 17, 1879: Two French men, Father Simeon Lourdel and Brother Amans Delmas, both members of Society of Missionaries of Africa, touched at Entebbe port, then known as Kyattale.
February 10, 1881: Archbishop Lavigerie authors communication to Uganda’s missionaries on winning over natives.
April and May 1882: Baptism of Mukasa Balikuddembe and Kaggwa. These two went on to become some of the martyrs.
Mid 1882: The missionaries found that some of the boys were engaging in homosexual activity.

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