How Catholic religion took root in Uganda

During the two years and eight months that the missionaries were out of Buganda, there were leadership changes that took place. Kabaka Muteesa died on October 10, 1884, and Mwanga took the throne.

It was during Muteesa’s reign that Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism came to Buganda and later spread to the rest of the territory. Although he welcomed all the three religions, Muteesa never fully subscribed to any of them, and neither was he openly hostile to any of them.

Despite him not committing to any of the religions, Muteesa did not stop his subjects from subscribing to any faith of their choice.

Enter Mwanga
Mwanga ascended to the throne at a tender age of 18 when the kingdom was going through hard times. Colonialists were making inroads into the kingdom and the new Christian converts were turning to a different supreme king to believe in and follow than the palace king.

Besides, the different factions were doing their best to endear themselves to the king.
Faced with such challenges, some historians branded Mwanga a weak king, as compared to those Buganda had before him.

His ascendance to the throne gave the exiled missionaries hope that their return will be eminent with the new king since he had been their sympathiser when he was still a prince.

According to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda and the Organisation of the Catechumenate 1879-1914, a history publication series by the Society of Missionaries of Africa, “ten days after his [Mwanga’s] installation, he sent messengers to the missionaries, inviting them to return.”

By the time they were sent away, the missionaries had only baptised 15 people with another 400 at different stages of baptismal training.
There was fear that with the absence of the Catholic missionaries, the new converts would easily be absorbed into the Church Missionary Society and become Anglicans. This did not happen.

Despite the little classifications created by the religions, Baganda converts were of the same socio-political standing. There were, however, back and forth movements to the different regions by converts.

Writing in the book Growth and Crisis of Buganda Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century, Médard. H said: “Almost all the first Christians have been Muslims for a while. In general, the first Catholics were not only ex-Muslims, but also ex-Protestants.”

With the missionaries gone, the few converts continued practising their faith but cautiously.
According to Hastings’ book From Mission to Church in Buganda, he says: “During this period without pastors, it is noteworthy that, instead of disappearing, the group of Catholics survived and grew without the assistance of any missionary. They were grouped around what we might call four ‘house churches’.”

These house churches were in different locations, with each house having a different leader.

Some of these leaders were the first Baganda to be baptised by the missionaries before they were forced out of the kingdom. One such group was led by Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, assisted by Jean Marie Muzeyi, and later by Charles Lwanga.
Another group, based in Nateete, was led by Andrea Kaggwa and deputised by Mathieu Kasule.

The two leaders, besides being Christian converts, held important offices at the palace.

Kaggwa was the chief musician while Kasule was the head of the forges. Luka Bannakintu and Matia Kalemba were based in Mityana while Yosefu Kaddu led a church house in Kitomu in Bulemezi. All these church house leaders had been baptised by the missionaries, except Kaggwa and Muzeyi.

As some converts stayed to carry on with preaching from where the missionaries had left, others like Paulo Nalubandwa, Karoli Buuza and his brother Cypriano Mutagwanya, and Gabriel Kintu went out in search of the missionaries in Tanzania.
They went as far as Tabora were Lourdel had opened a mission post.

Return of the missionaries
Having received Mwanga’s invitation, the missionaries stared the long trek back to Uganda in November 1884. Father Lourdel, Brother Amans and Father Giraud, a new missionary priest, docked at Entebbe on July 12, 1885.

The trio was received at the palace and they continued from where they had stopped. Upon their return, the king was very kind to them and their expectations of their mission were high until 1885.

The young king’s kindness soon evaporated and the missionaries became very anxious about what the future held for them. They had learnt that while they were away, the young king had ordered for the killing of three Anglican servants.

The death of Bishop Hannington in October 1885 also provoked the assassination of Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, who was the guide of the Christians at court.

According to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda, history series number nine: “Mukasa had reproached the king with this murder, and he was suspected of having communicated to the missionaries the state secret.”

These were troubled times and Lourdel, aware of the threat, agreed to baptise more readily those who requested baptism, even if they had not completed four years of training. From November 1885 onwards, Christians and catechumens came to the mission at night.

By May 1886, the king’s kindness had turned into rage, in that between May 25 and 30, a combined number of 12 Catholic and Anglican Christians were killed.

A week later, on June 3, 1886, 13 Catholics and 13 Protestants were burnt alive at Namugongo. Many of those burnt had been baptised by fellow converts after their arrest before the final journey to Namugongo.

Mwanga’s anger, according to The Beginning of the White Fathers’ Mission in Southern Uganda, was not restricted to his palace alone

“Mwanga also sent soldiers outside the capital, to Mityana, among other places. There is no doubt that many other Christians were killed, but the exact number is unknown. At the end of January 1887, the Kabaka seems to have grown calmer and the persecution ceased,” the book said.

Missionaries and palace coups of 1888
In mid-1888, Kabaka Mwanga tried to gain firmer control over the new regiments he had founded two years earlier. Others say he wished to eliminate them.

As a result, a Christian coalition led by Honorat Nyonyintono and Apollo Kaggwa in conjunction with Muslim units chased Mwanga from his throne on September 10, 1888, and replaced him with his brother Kiwewa.

It was a coup d’état and an event with far-reaching long-term implications which brought about this coalition. It was the start of the weakening of royal power and the transfer of political power to a group of young leaders who, for the most part, adhered to the new ‘imported’ religions.

Writing in the book Crisis and Growth, H. Médard says: “October 1888 opened a new leaf of religion in Buganda. That is when the link between political power and religion started with the coups d’état.

Religion was at the heart of military-political groupings, and this situation was to be for generations, the cement of socio-political positions in Buganda.”

He goes on to say: “At first, it was just a matter of rivalry for power between chiefs; later this was translated into opposition between armed and structured political parties, which were called bafransa and bangeleza.”

“The origin and internal cohesion of these parties was generally religious, even when their goal was political power. From then on, access to power and the associated privileges was achieved, not by favour of the king, but from religious political parties.”

Beneficiaries of the coup
It’s the missionaries who were the first beneficiaries of the coup. The involvement of the Christian chiefs in the coup brought many new sympathisers to the faith.

However, soon after the alliance between the Christians and the Muslims broke, the Muslims turned against the Catholic missionaries, taking advantage of their superior army.

With a better army, in October of the same year, the Muslims engineered another coup which led to another round of expulsion of all Christian missionaries from Buganda.
Writing in the book African Slavery and Europe Volume Two, Archbishop Lavigerie says after the Muslims seized power on October 10, 1888, Bishop Livinhac, fathers Lourdel and Denoit and Brother Amans were imprisoned by one of the Muslim chiefs.

With the Muslims in power, they installed another king, Kalema, and during this time, they stripped the missionaries of all their possessions and had some of the missions burned down.

For the second time, Catholics of Buganda were left without priests and the mission closed while others were burnt down. Those who took on the leadership mantle of the Christians were military leaders who had either engaged with the Muslims before or fought against fellow Christians.

Under the leadership of the Catholic and Protestant chiefs, Nyonyintono and Apollo Kaggwa respectively, the Christian armed groups who had been driven out of Buganda by the Muslim army to Kabula, then part of Ankole, reorganised and made a forceful comeback to Buganda. With their return so did Kabaka Mwanga.

To show his appreciation to the Christian armies upon his return to the palace in Kampala, Kabaka Mwanga gave the catholic missionaries land at Rubaga where another mission was opened.

Fr Lourdel went ahead to lay a foundation stone for the construction of the new church on the land given to them by Kabaka Mwanga. Unfortunately, a few weeks after that, on May 12, 1890, he died.
His death did not deter the increase in new converts flocking to the mission to start baptism classes.

Ancestors in faith

In 1974, Archbishop Nsubuga (pictured) took the opportunity of a journey to Europe to visit the birthplaces and the surviving relatives of the first five Catholic missionaries who arrived in Uganda in 1879.

On his return to Uganda, he decided that, to remain true to the traditions of Buganda, these five missionaries, “our ancestors in the faith”, as he called them, ought to be buried in Buganda.
“We consider it a right and a duty to bring, their remains back to the land for which they have died, with no other purpose than that of giving us the message of Christ,” said the archbishop.

He added: “Let us be real Ugandans and by seeing to our Fathers in the Faith who died years ago for us, as real Ugandans see to their beloved dead, we will bring to our country the blessings of God. This whole exercise is basically a very religious and Ugandan gesture.”

With the kind assistance of president Amin’s office in Kampala, the various governments concerned gave their authorisation and the archbishop travelled in turn to Zanzibar and Bagamoyo where Fr Barbot and Br Amans respectively had been buried, then to Algiers where the remains of Archbishop Livinhac were resting in the cathedral.

An interesting detail noticed by many was that the remains of these three arrived at Entebbe close to the spot where, as young missionaries, they had landed for the first time 95 years earlier.

Source: africamission-mafr.org

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