The present day church in Uganda was born in 1880. Before the colonial expansion of that age, there was little European interest in Sub-Saharan Africa. But with the explorers and traders came the gospel, and the message of Christ was received with great joy and purity of heart. In six short years, the faith of the Ugandan converts would outshine that of their teachers.
For the Ugandan natives, embracing Christianity meant renouncing old tribal beliefs and practices. It also required a certain degree of loyalty to the western missionaries, either the British Anglicans or the French Catholics. Naturally, this change upset the old political and social order. The young Ugandan King Mwanga felt particularly threatened.
Mwanga was a known pedophile who routinely abused the boys in his court. According to tradition, the king had absolute authority over his subjects. Thus his abuse, though repulsive in the Ugandan culture, was tolerated without question until the conversion of several young men in the king’s service.
Among the Catholic converts in the royal court was Joseph Mkasa, the king’s chief steward. Mkasa enjoyed a warm friendship with his lord for many years, but when Mwanga ordered the killing of a new Anglican bishop, Mkasa confronted him and condemned the murder. This infuriated the king. Mwanga struck Mkasa with a spear and ordered his execution. On the way to his beheading, Mkasa publically forgave the king, and made one last plea for his repentance.
Charles Lwanga took Mkasa’s place as leader of the Christians at court. Like his predecessor, Lwanga worked to keep the young boys away from the king. For six months all was quiet, until Mwanga called for one of his pages. When the king asked why the boy had been away, the youth replied that he had been receiving religious instruction. Mwanga summoned the boy’s teacher and killed him on the spot with his own spear. Then he locked the royal compound and summoned his executioners.
Lwanga understood the king’s intention. That night he baptized four catechumens, including a thirteen year old named Kizito. The following morning Mwanga summoned his entire court, separating the Christians from the others. He questioned the fifteen believers, all under twenty-five years old, asking if they would choose to remain Christians. When they all resolutely responded, “Yes,” he condemned them to death.
Other professing Christians were swept up in the persecution until the condemned numbered twenty-four, thirteen Catholics and eleven Anglicans. They were marched 37 miles to the site of their execution, many singing and rejoicing as they went.
The chief executioner was young Kizito’s father. Twice he urged his son to run and hide, but the boy refused. Kizito was killed first. Others were tortured, then wrapped in reed mats and burned on a pyre.[1]
Shortly afterwards, the missionaries were expelled. Without priests and without sacraments, the Ugandan Christians remained steadfast and grew in number. When the Catholic missionaries returned after King Mwanga’s death, they found 500 practicing Christians, and 1,000 catechumens awaiting baptism. The Anglican Church, likewise, was strengthened by the death of her children.
The Ugandan martyrs were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. The following is an excerpt from his speech.[2]
The African martyrs add another page to the martyrology – the Church’s roll of honour – an occasion both of mourning and of joy. This is a page worthy in every way to be added to the annals of that Africa of earlier which we, living in this era and being men of little faith, never expected to be repeated.
In earlier times there occurred those famous deeds, so moving to the spirit, of the martyrs of Scilli, of Carthage, and of that “white robed army” of Utica commemorated by Saint Augustine and Prudentius; of the martyrs of Egypt so highly praised by Saint John Chrysostom, and of the martyrs of the Vandal persecution. Who would have thought that in our days we should have witnessed events as heroic and glorious?
Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their 20 [sic.] companions? Nor must we forget those members of the Anglican Church who also died for the name of Christ.
These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed not toward persecutions and religious conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilisation!
Africa has been washed by the blood of these latest martyrs, the first of this new age (and, God willing, let them be the last, although such a holocaust is precious indeed). Africa is reborn free and independent.
[1] Catholic Online, http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=35, June 11, 2010)
[2]http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/934/Martyrs_of_Uganda_Paul_VI.html June 11, 2010.
Source: Amy Cogdell - Ancient Wells