What is the history of the Uganda martyrs?
Overview
22 Catholic and 23 Anglican converts to Christianity in the kingdom of Buganda, which is now a part of Uganda are known as the Uganda Martyrs. They were put to death between January 31, 1885, and January 27, 1887.
The Kabaka (King) of Buganda, Mwanga II, ordered their murder. The deaths occurred as the Buganda royal court was embroiled in a three-way theological war for political power. The "Scramble for Africa"-the invasion, occupation, partition, colonization, and annexation of African land by European powers-was another backdrop against which the drama took place.
The killings were utilized a few years later by the English Church Missionary Society to rally support from a larger segment of the populace for the British Empire's purchase of Uganda.Pope Paul VI canonized the 22 Catholic Ugandan martyrs of the faith in 1964 in Rome's St. Peter's Basilica after they were beatified by the Catholic Church in 1920.
Alexander Mackay of the Anglican Church Missionary Society arrived in Buganda in 1877 after a letter allegedly containing an invitation from Kabaka Muteesa I to send missionaries was published in Britain in 1875. Two years later, a group of French Catholic White Fathers arose under the leadership of Père Simon Lourdel (Fr. Mapera). Islam had been brought to the kingdom by Arab traders from Zanzibar. At the Buganda royal court, this essentially resulted in a three-way theological war for political power. Each of the three organizations had converted a large number of people by the middle of the 1880s, and some of the converts were in high positions at the king's court.
Although several well-known chiefs had converted to Christianity, Muteesa himself held sympathy for Islam.
In 1884, Kabaka Mwanga II took the throne. He was worried by the spread of Christianity and the emergence of a new class of officials who were educated, religious and wanted to change Ganda culture. These officials were different from the previous territory chiefs. More concern was raised when Germany annexed what is now Tanzania.
He put Yusufu Rugarama, Makko Kakumba, and Nuwa/Noah Serwanga-who had converted to Christianity-to death a year after ascending to the throne. Encouraged by his prime minister, Alexander ordered the assassination of James Hannington the incoming Anglican bishop, on the eastern edge of his realm on October 29, 1885. It's possible that he did this on purpose to let the British know that he didn't want them to advance into Uganda.
Additionally, it is said that Bishop James Hannington was murdered because of a story that existed at the time, according to which foes who would destroy the Kingdom would arrive from the East, which is where the Bishop was coming from. Thus, the Kabaka had the Bishop put to death by the chief Luba of the Eastern Busoga Chiefdom. However, Mwanga later appointed a number of Christians to high-level military posts.
Executions from 1885 to 1886
Many royal court officials were put to death by Mwanga in 1886 for defying his religious demands, which he considered to be insubordination. According to Heike Behrend, they were both Muslim and Christian converts; other accounts solely discuss Anglican and Catholic fatalities and state that Mwanga's father Muteesa killed Muslims 10 years prior. On November 15, 1885, Joseph Mukasa, a Christian convert who had opposed Hannington's murder and attempted to defend the court pages, was the first to be put to death.
The Katikkiro (prime minister) Mukasa, whose successor Joseph Mukasa was predicted to become king, was the one who initiated this. Then, a larger number of executions took place between May 25 and June 3, 1886. In part to appease the elder chiefs' demands, Mwanga ordered the execution of any young man who defied him. In 1886, twenty-two of the men were burnt alive in Namugongo after they became Catholic.
According to Behrend, "there is still much disagreement about the reasons for the persecution." Political considerations undoubtedly had an impact. Minor leaders were among those slain; Joe Mukasa, for example, was "the victim of particular grudges by their seniors... jealous that these up-and-coming young men would soon be ousting them from power." According to Ward, the belief that "these Christians were rebels against the Kabaka, unwitting tools of foreign imperialism" served as the driving force.
The French missionary priest Lourdel, who witnessed the incident said that Mwanga's sense of hatred against the literate Christians who professed to have a higher level of religious understanding was the main contributing factor. The pages' reluctance to comply with the customary royal requirements of sexual submission was cited by Lourdel as a secondary reason for Mwanga's behavior. This unwillingness to comply with his desires to have intercourse with him infuriated the king, who historically had the authority to decide who would live and who would die.
According to Marie de Kiewet-Hemphill, the pages' unwillingness to submit themselves to Mwanga was the immediate pretext, if not the primary reason. Since hatred toward Christianity is insufficient to explain why Mwanga targeted these young men rather than notable chiefs and ladies among the converts, Roland Oliver rejects this as a valid explanation. The same idea is brought up by Sylvia Antonia Nannyonga-Tamusuza. In his work on the subject, J. P. Thoonen acknowledges the existence of other political elements while agreeing with Kiewet-Hemphill's thesis. Especially since some people who gave up their beliefs were saved from death.
The monarch had dispatched Mwanga's close friend, the Muslim Lutaya for sex but Matthias Gayinga a Christian, refused his requests during the week before the killings. Despite not being murdered, he received harsh punishment for this. The English missionary A. P. Ashe characterized his position as a "splendid refusal" and subsequently stated that it served as the catalyst for subsequent events. Anatole Kirrigwajjo, another convert refused to accept a high-ranking position "which he could only exercise at the peril of his soul" as a result of his conduct.
One-page Muwafi did cooperate, even though many of the Christian pages frequently contrived to be absent when Mwanga requested them or flatly refused his sexual solicitation. According to legend, Mwanga overheard another page evangelizing Muwafi. Mwanga thought that this was a plan "to rob him of his favourite and so far always compliant toy, by teaching him the religion which made them prefer death to submission”. Mwanga requested those who prayed to stand aside and called forth the pages. These were then sent on a protracted journey to be burned alive for execution with the majority of them being between the ages of 15 and 30.
Veneration of the Catholic Church
Heike Behrend claims that the Catholic Church used the incident to turn the victims into the center of a "cult of martyrs" after the deaths. To aid in evangelization, Archbishop Henri Streicher established the Uganda Martyrs Guild in Uganda in 1897. The 1950s saw the politicization of certain Guild chapters. Later, it evolved into a significant anti-witchcraft campaign in Tooro under the influence of the charismatic campaign.
In Senegal, where their remains are housed in a cathedral constructed in 1890 and where other chapels are devoted to Kizito, the youngest of their number, the honor given to the Ugandan martyrs elsewhere in Africa contributes to Africanize Catholicism
Charles Lwanga, Matiya Mulumba, and their twenty colleagues were canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 18, 1964, after being beatified by Pope Benedict XV on June 6, 1920. In the Catholic Church's canonization ceremony
According to Pope Paul, "Nor, indeed, do we wish to forget the others who, belonging to the Anglican confession, confronted death in the name of Christ." He also identified the Anglicans as martyrs. As the final celebration of the Tridentine Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, the papal mass canonizing them is noteworthy. The next year, Vatican City commemorated the canonization with a series of postage stamps.
The Roman Martyrology honors the nine surviving martyrs on their particular dates of death, but the General Roman Calendar includes a feast day for Charles Lwanga and the other twelve who perished on June 3, 1886.
In 1968, the Basilica of the Uganda Martyrs was constructed in Namugongo. Massive pilgrimages have been held there since the 1980s, and in 2014, plans for extensive expansion were revealed.
In honor of the Ugandan Martyrs, Santi Martiri dell'Uganda a Poggio Ameno is a church in Rome that was dedicated in 1980 and was made a titular church in 1988.
The Uganda Martyrs University was founded by the Uganda Episcopal Conference in 1993 and was granted a civil charter in 2005.
A memorial to their canonization is the Munyonyo Martyrs Shrine. Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, Archbishop Michael A. Blume, and the papal nuncio to Uganda officially laid the foundation stone on May 3, 2015. A new church shrine, museum, offices, and saints' martyrdom sites were all built as part of the renovation.
Ugandan martyrs' shrines consist of the following:
Wakiso District is home to the shrine of the Namugongo Martyrs.
Hoima District's St. Andrew Kaggwa (Kahawa) shrine.
St. Anatole Kiriggwajjo shrine.
The Fort Portal District's St. Adolf Mukasa Ludigo shrine.
Memorial for the Busega Martyrs
Anglican
In the Church of England, the 23 Martyrs of Uganda are commemorated on June 3. The Church of England honors Archbishop Janani Luwum, who was killed by Idi Amin's goons in 1977, as part of their commemoration of the Ugandan martyrs. Luwum is also honored independently on February 16.