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The Catholic Church in Uganda is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
According to the 2024 census, there were an estimated 16,985,004 Catholics in the country, comprising around 37 percent of the total population. [1]
The first Europeans arrived in Uganda in 1862, when John Speke traversed the region in a search for the source of the Nile. European arrivals increased in the following years, and the White Fathers became the country's first Catholic missionaries in 1879. Their evangelization was effective, and the baptized population increased to 8,500 by 1888. The conversion of natives was met with hostility by Kabaka Mwanga II, King of Buganda, who saw the Christian religion as jeopardizing his authority. Catholic converts and those affiliated with the White Fathers were often arrested and put to death for their beliefs, their remains strewed across the land as a warning to anyone considering conversion. This persecution and violence climaxed in the killing of the Uganda Martyrs, when 22 Catholic converts were burned alive at Namugongo. Persecution directed toward the region's Christians slowed the arrival of missionaries during this time, and many left out of fear. [2] However, Uganda was annexed by the British in 1890, which allowed for more Christian influence in the country. The Mill Hill Missionaries and Verona Fathers were the most prominent Catholic missionaries in the territory during the following years. Mill Hill Missionaries mainly evangelized in Eastern Uganda, while the Verona Fathers converted people in the North. Efforts to convert the indigenous population were successful, and the population of all Catholics in the country grew to 86,000 by the year 1905, and 370,000 in 1923, representing roughly 12.4% of the population. [3] [4] Uganda's first native Bishop, Joseph Kiwanuka, was consecrated in 1939, where he served as Apostolic Vicar of Masaka. [5]
The Catholic Church celebrates on June 3 the feast of the Uganda Martyrs — Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions — who were killed by King Mwanga II between 1885 and 1887. [6]
In 2020, there were over 2,500 priests and over 4,000 nuns serving across 654 parishes; the church also ran 49 hospitals and homes for the old and infirm. [7]
Sir Apollo Kagwa (1864–1927) was a major intellectual and political leader in Uganda when it was under British rule. He was a leader of the Protestant faction and was appointed prime minister (Katikkiro) of the Kingdom of Buganda by King Mwanga II in 1890. He served until 1926. Kagwa served as prince regent from 1897 until 1914 when the infant King Daudi Chwa came of age. He was Buganda's first and foremost ethnographer.
James Hannington was an English Anglican missionary and martyr. He was the first Anglican bishop of East Africa.
Charles Lwanga was a Ugandan convert to the Catholic Church who was martyred with a group of his peers and is revered as a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
Danieri Basammula-Ekkere Mwanga II Mukasa was the 31st Kabaka of Buganda who ruled from 1884 until 1888 and from 1889 until 1897.
The Church of Uganda (C/U) is a member province of the Anglican Communion. Currently, there are 37 dioceses that make up the Church of Uganda, each headed by a bishop.
Alexander Murdoch Mackay was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Uganda also known as Mackay of Uganda. After studying math, drafting and other technical subjects at several universities, Mackay, at age twenty-five, decided to dedicate his life to Christian missionary work, and saw this as a great opportunity to put his technical skills to beneficial use. He was assigned to serve in Uganda by the Church Missionary Society in 1876. While serving as a missionary he performed religious and educational services for the native people of that country, however, his mission was often at risk due to the almost constant tribal wars that surrounded the mission, often instigated by Arab traders and Muslim tribes. During the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition Henry Morton Stanley visited Mackay at the Usambiro mission for a short period where he received aid and local information from him. Mackay worked with David Livingstone and Sir John Kirk to help bring an end to the brutal Arab slave trade in central Africa.
The Uganda Martyrs are a group of 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican converts to Christianity in the historical kingdom of Buganda, now part of Uganda, who were executed between 31 January 1885 and 27 January 1887.
Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe was a Ugandan Catholic martyr and the majordomo at the court of Mwanga II of Buganda, recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church.
Achilleus Kiwanuka, also known as Achileo Kiwanuka or Achilles Kiwanuka or Achiles Kiwanuka, was a Ugandan Catholic martyr revered as a saint in the Catholic Church.
The Archdiocese of Kampala is the Metropolitan See for the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical province of Kampala in Uganda.
Joseph Kiwanuka, was a Ugandan prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Rubaga from 1960 until his death.
Namugongo is a township in the Central Region of Uganda.
Lubaga is a hill in Kampala, Uganda's capital and largest city. It comes from the Luganda word okubaga, describing a process of "planning" or "strengthening" a structure while constructing it. For example, okubaga ekisenge means to strengthen the internal structure of a wall while building a house. The name also applies to the neighborhood on the hill.
Muteesa I Mukaabya Walugembe Kayiira was the 30th Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda, from 1856 until 1884.
Busega is a neighborhood within Kampala, the capital and largest city of Uganda.
Henri Streicher was a French Catholic archbishop who served as Vicar Apostolic of Northern Victoria Nyanza from 1897 to 1933. He ordained the continent's first Catholic priests of modern times, both from Uganda.
Buddu is a county (Ssaza) of the kingdom of Buganda in what is now Uganda.
Uganda has a very long and, quite permissive, and sometimes violent history regarding the LGBT community, stretching back from the pre-colonial period, through British colonial control, and even after independence.
Saint Mary's Cathedral Rubaga, commonly referred to as Rubaga Cathedral, is the parent cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in Uganda. It is the home church of Archbishop of Kampala.
The pioneer White Fathers were affiliated to the Catholic Missionary Society of White Fathers which is also known as Religious Institute of the Missionaries of Africa. They arrived in Algiers in February 1874. They started their journey to Equatorial Africa on 15 November 1878. They spent 10 months on their journey in which 2 months were spent in a boat from Algiers to Bagamoyo and the other 8 months on foot from Bagamoyo to Kigungu.