Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
The candidates for perpetual profession prostate before the altar of God in an act of self-submission.
THOUGH HE was ruthless and did a lot of harm to his people, Ugandans must forgive their late president, Idi Amin. In this way, said Ugandan Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, the nation would live out a Christian grace and also create greater scope for national development.
Cardinal Wamala, 80, shared that view with The Gleaner last week as a guest of the local Roman Catholic community. Specifically, he was here to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Missionaries of the Poor, the indigenous religious order founded by Fr. Richard Ho Lung.
"I was invited to participate in the celebration of the silver jubilee of the brothers (Missionaries of the Poor). I said I had to come because these brothers serve in our diocese (Diocese of Kampala) and are doing a marvellous work in our country for the almost six years they have been there," he said.
As head of the diocese of Kampala, Cardinal Wamala serves two million persons of which about one million are Roman Catholics.
Uganda has a population of 28 million and more than 50 languages of which the ones mostly spoken are English, Ganda, Swahili and various Bantu
languages.
There are two dominant religions there Christianity and Islam. Within the Christian groupings Roman Catholicism has more adherents than Protestantism.
UNFLATTERING CARTOONS
Cardinal Wamala offered a comment concerning the protests that occurred in Europe, Asia and the Middle East earlier this year when a few European newspapers published unflattering cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. He said Christianity and Islam need to show greater respect for each other.
Dialogue, he continued, is the only way forward. He nevertheless made the observation that not enough is being said concerning the extent to which religious freedoms are being fettered in Muslim countries.
As head of the diocese of Kampala, Cardinal Wamala said he would like to see it more evangelised.
He wanted to see people becoming more committed to the Roman Catholic Church. In addition, he wants to see the church achieving greater financial sustainability.
A cardinal since 1994, the clergyman has been in the forefront of Uganda's successful efforts to drastically reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. This achievement has earned the nation global acclaim.
The Roman Catholic Church in Uganda, he said, played a role by hosting and facilitating many public education seminars and forums. The church, he said, sought also to promote fidelity in marriage, and abstinence for singles.
Furthermore, the church was diligent to visit and minister to those with AIDS. All these efforts, he said, helped to reduce the stigma attached to the illness. With the stigma defused, many infected persons sought help.
He said he wished he was able to influence people to register a commitment to maintain their virginity until marriage. Though he has been speaking of the need for such a programme, it has not got off the ground.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC
IMPROVEMENTS
Cardinal Wamala has not been afraid to speak out against the ills of the administration of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. He praised the president for engineering significant socio-economic improvements in the nation. But he is unhappy that the president has broken his word by amending the constitution to allow him to serve a third term as president. Originally the constitution, that he helped to shape, barred anyone from serving more than two consecutive terms as president. Museveni got the constitution amended just so that he could serve a third term.
The Cardinal is upbeat about the future of the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda. Unlike many jurisdictions, Uganda, he said, does not have much of a problem attracting young men to the priesthood. Nor has the church there embraced a particular strategy to get young men into the priesthood. Young men, he said, are attracted to the priesthood because they see Christ modelled in the lives of priests they know. This is complemented by the influence of Roman Catholic parents who have a positive and affirming influence on sons who show an inclination to the sacred ministry.
Also, the influence of many Roman Catholic schools, he said cannot be discounted.
SEXUAL ABUSE
Quizzed about the spate of cases of sexual abuse of boys by priests which have come to the fore in recent years, the Cardinal said the problem had little to do with how priests are trained "I don't think the church has failed in spiritual formation." He believes that various influences in society have overpowered priests causing them to be abusive. "These influences include society favouring homosexual relations as okay. That is the kind of air we breathe. So even an innocent priest comes out of the seminary is breathing that kind of air."
Asked about the probability of a future Pope coming from Africa, the Cardinal, who was one of those who last year elected a successor to Pope John Paul II, said geography was not a factor in these matters. He pointed to the election of Benedict XVI. He said the Cardinals elected the new pontiff purely as guided by the Holy Spirit.
He praised the legacy of Pope John Paul II, saying that he gave clear teachings on the identity and mission of the church.
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