A weekly column by Father George Rutler.
Last week the Church celebrated the feast of the Martyrs
of Uganda. In the late nineteenth century, French and English
missionaries were welcomed by King Mutesa I of Buganda in the southern
part of modern Uganda. His successor, Mwanga II, however, was a youth
who became a persecutor of Christians and all foreigners. He especially
opposed Christian morality, as it contradicted his affinity for
unnatural vice which was abhorred by the local Buganda culture, but
which he is said to have learned from Arab tradesmen. The young male
pages of Mwanga’s court were Christian converts and refused the king’s
attempts at seduction. This disobedience to the king was considered
treasonous, and Mwanga exercised what he considered his right to destroy
any life at will, according to the saying, Namunswa alya kunswaze
— meaning “the queen ant feeds on her subjects.” Mwanga soon decreed
the execution of converts Yusufu Rugarama, Makko Kakumba and Nuwa
Sserwanga on January 31, 1885. A senior advisor to the king, Joseph
Mukasa Balikuddembe, was beheaded on November 15, 1885, and there were
many martyrdoms in the following year, climaxing on June 3, 1886, with
the torture and burning alive of twenty-six at Namugongo, including
their leader, Charles Lwanga, a recent convert himself and majordomo of
the royal household. Pope Paul VI canonized them in 1964. An icon of St.
Charles Lwanga is in our sanctuary.
When Pope Paul went to Uganda as the first pope to make an
apostolic journey to sub-Saharan Africa, he said, “The infamous crime by
which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so
expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a
moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, to be
handed down to posterity. Symbolically, this crime also reveals that a
simple and rough way of life — enriched by many fine human qualities yet
enslaved by its own weakness and corruption — must give way to a more
civilized life wherein the higher expressions of the mind and better
social conditions prevail.”
Alas, the infamous crime of which the Holy Father spoke is now
paraded as a civil right in our decaying culture, and some states are
making it quasi-sacramental. Our current president promotes it, along
with his defense of infanticide, which even King Mwanga II would have
found degrading. Pope Francis recently said that one cannot be a
Christian if one is not willing to be a martyr. In New York today,
Catholics may not face beheading or burning, but their political
incorrectness could subject them to the subtle ignominy of social scorn
and discrimination. Ours has become a neo-pagan culture, and that can be
even worse than a simple pagan culture. Pagans did not know about
Christ, while neo-pagans do know about him and reject him, so their
defense is the malice of a cynic.
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