Prayer to St Karoli Lwanga made me walk

“You are welcome to my humble home,” Levocatus Kalema, who walks with a slight limp, says as he leads us to a makeshift shelter covered with tarpaulin surrounded by banana and coffee plantations.
It had taken us three-and-a-half hours of driving to reach Kakuuto in the dusty outskirts of Rakai District.
Beneath the shelter are blue plastic chairs and three mats on the ground. On our left is a kraal with two Friesians and two goats; to the right is an abandoned house foundation.
Waiting for us are four peers of Kalema who have known him since he was born in 1959.

A crippled baby
“Kalema was born a few months after his father’s death,” says Maria Agnes Namutebi, his 61-year-old cousin.
“His mother died in labour. The baby seemed to have no bones in his legs and the spinal cord was weak. Growing up, he could not sit, crawl or talk. He would just lie on the mat.”
Kalema’s grandmother, Kalala Nambejja Kyofuna, took him and his older brother Mugenyi, to her home. Relatives and neighbours associated Kalema’s condition to evil and Kyofuna’s home.
“I used to come to grandmother’s home to pick mangoes,” says Namutebi. “I would pick the baby and try to play with him with no success. I would then leave him and pick mangoes.”

Moving to Bwanda convent
One day, while Primary Three pupils from Bigada Girls’ Primary School were digging the Bannabikira Sisters’ garden, they took a break to discuss the crippled child.
“The sisters were angry at what we were talking about,” Namutebi narrates. “They ordered us to dig and chat later. We obliged. We told the sisters that the child could die because the elderly grandmother was too weak to provide sufficient care.”

When this was brought to her attention, Sister Sebastiane, the Mother Superior of the convent, instructed the sisters to bring the child to the convent.
Sister Rose Assumpta was slightly older than Kalema when the grandmother offered him to the nuns.
“My task was to watch over Kalema,” says Sr Assumpta, now a Superior in Losilang Parish-Kotido Diocese.
“His bones were frail so my sister, Mauricia Namuwonge, was in charge of washing his clothes, cleaning, and feeding him.”

The miracle
In 1920 Pope Benedict XV had beatified 13 Uganda Martyrs. However, to become Saints, a miracle had to be performed with their intervention.
“In 1961 Bishop Joseph Kiwanuka of Masaka Diocese announced that Catholics pray for miracles to be performed through the martyrs,” says Augustino Mukiibi, 64.
At that time Mukiibi was nine years old and in Primary One at Bigada Boys’ Primary School.
“On June 9, 1961, we started the nine-day novena at Bigada Cathedral, the girls and boys prayed separately. Every day, nuns laid Kalema on the relics of the martyrs at the altar. At midday, we would leave him there and go for lunch.”

The bells would ring at the two schools and teachers would instruct the pupils to go for prayers at the cathedral after which the novena would be said.
Namutebi says the Sisters told the girls to kneel before a picture of the martyrs, and spread their hands as they prayed through Karoli Lwanga.
“Our arms ached but we persisted until we finished saying the rosary.”
On June 14, 1961, three days before the end of the prayer, a child who was tasked to feed Kalema told them that the two-and-a-half year-old child had been crawling at the cathedral stairs.

“We thought someone had carried him there,” says Namutebi. “When he stood his legs looked frail. A few minutes ago, you should have heard the jubilation!”
“I remember seeing the sisters playing drums and ululating,” recalls Sister Assumpta.
By evening, Kalema had firm strides supporting himself on the walls of the convent. However, his club feet had not changed.
Such was the faith of the children and sisters. They immediately began a new novena for his feet to straighten.

Science comes in
A few days into the novena, one of the nuns had a dream.
“St Matia Mulumba appeared to a sister and asked her, ‘temwategela kyamagero kyetwabakolera?’ (Didn’t you understand the miracle we performed?) We stopped the novena,” says Namutebi.
Understandably, Kalema does not recall any of this. During the narration he has been silent. But now he picks up the conversation in his soft voice.

“Sister Maria Kizaveria told me that I was three years old, when a White Father from Rubaga Diocese who had heard of the miracle took me to Mulago Hospital so that the doctors could examine my feet.”
The doctors operated on Kalema’s legs from the thighs to the feet. They reset his feet bones with staple wires. He spent two years in hospital.

Later life
Since male children were not allowed in the convent, when Kalema returned to Bigada, Sister Kizaveria took him to an old catechist in Kabuwoko.
“I was five and walking on crutches. An elderly woman, Malita Nakiwala, came to the Kabuwoko Cathedral in Kabuwoko and the Bannabiikira asked her to take me with her.”
Nakiwala returned with the boy to Kyamaganda and he began going to school. Unfortunately when Kalema was in Primary Five, Nakiwala’s grandchildren rose up against her.
“She used to bring orphans home. There were many of us and her grandchildren thought we would inherit their property.”
When Sister Kizaveria came to check on her charge, she found him in a dire situation. She told him to go to Sister Teofilla, who had been transferred to Nkoni.

“A good Samaritan rode me on his bicycle from Kyamaganda to Nkoni. Sister Teofilla found for me shelter at Maria Namusoke’s home. The headmaster of St Herman School in Nkoni, Henry Mary Katerega, offered me education up to Primary Seven.”
Sister Teofilla provided for Kalema all he needed and he joined St Joseph Kiteredde Secondary School in Masaka. Thereafter, he went to Apostles of Jesus Seminary in Moroto, and another five years in Langata Seminary, Kenya studying philosophy.

“Why didn’t you become a priest?” I interject. He smiles as his wife, Nalongo Josephine comes out of the house to greet us.
“In 1986, I felt the Lord calling me home to ensure the continuity of my family.”
It was only after Kalema got married that Sister Teofilla let him go.
“Kati okuzze. Genda wetakulire,” she told him. Translated as you are now a grown man, go and fend for yourself.

Life now
“My left foot gives me pain now, when I do a lot of work. It was the most deformed and now I cannot ride a bicycle. It is a unique pain so I want to have it x-rayed at Mulago Hospital.”
In 1979, during the war that ousted Amin, the staple wires in Kalema’s feet broke. At Mulago Hospital, the wires were removed but he does not know what the doctors replaced them with.

In Bigada Parish, Kalema served as the Vice Sacristan (Ssabacristo) before being handed the task of overseeing the construction of the Cathedral of Kakuuto sub-parish in the 1990s. He was also the leader of the PTA at Kakuuto Central Primary School.

The Altar where Kalema’s miracle took place was used for firewood by Tanzanian soldiers during the 1979 war.
“They had a base at the convent,” says Mukiibi. “Everything wooden, including the chairs and doors was used for cooking. Nothing was sacred. Not even the picture of the martyrs that used to sit on the Altar.”
Today, a new Cathedral stands adjacent to the site of the old one.

Reverend Canon Henry Segawa

Head, Anglican Martyrs Shrine, Namugongo
The Anglican Church does not pray through the martyrs but Jesus Christ. However, healing is a matter of personal faith. There are people who give testimonies of miracles by praying through the martyrs or by using holy water.
For instance, a woman who had been barren for years prayed through the martyrs and got a child. This year, she brought the baby and placed it at the altar where the martyr’s remains are buried. She was giving thanks. If we find people praying to the martyrs we do not question them.
God works in mysterious ways. When people testify of miracles, I believe them. As a Church, we may not approve, but if that is how their Church teaches them, I have no problem with it.

Maria Mutagamba, Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities
I was nine years old. On my way to school, I would pass by Kalema’s home.We would see his grandmother sitting with the baby on the mat. When the Bishop declared prayers for the martyrs, three of us went to Kalema’s grandmother and told her. She was happy and gave us the baby. Using a bed sheet, we strapped him on our backs and took him to Sister Sebastiane. He had club feet. Every morning at 10am we took him to the altar in the cathedral. I was given the responsibility of feeding and taking him back to his grandmother’s in the evening.
We would carry bricks in our hands, and spread our arms, in the crucifixion pose while kneeling on the cold floor and say 10 Hail Marys.

I will never forget those prayers. We were keen even with the pain we felt. After three days the nuns asked that he stays with them in the convent.I remember on the ninth day when I went to the altar to feed him, he was not there. He had dragged himself on the rails and was on the other side. You should have seen the jubilation of everyone. Later, a priest rode me on a bicycle to Kalema’s home to take pictures. It was my first ride and I will always remember it. I later met Kalema in Nairobi while he was at a Seminary and I was pursuing my studies. I met him again in Uganda, doing his private work. I believe in prayers and I find solace in faith.

Father Joseph Muwonge, Uganda Martyrs Shrine, Namugongo
According to the documents we have, Kalema’s miracle was one of the two performed by the Uganda Martyrs.The miracle was verified by the Vatican and documented in the archives at Rubaga Cathedral, in a book called So Abundant A Harvest by Tourigny, on Page 175. Although the Vatican approved the miracle, when it came to proclaiming the saints, they only used the first miracle, where the sisters were healed.
Nowadays, people come to us to report miracles by the martyrs. We forward these testimonies to the Archbishop of Kampala so that he can consult with medical experts.
Until we get confirmation, we do not call them miracles. If someone prays, while taking medication to get better, then that is not a miracle. It is a favour.

Their unshakable faith

Maria Namutebiattributes miracles to perseverance and patience. She is among those praying for miracles from the late Monsignor Aloysius Ngobya so that he can be declared a saint.
“I was servicing a loan of Shs 1m from Post Bank. When Shs 300,000 was left, I became stuck. I entered a room full of pictures of Father Ngobya and began praying. As I was still praying the phone rang. Someone had sent me Shs 400,000,” says a tearful Namutebi.

Mauricia Nasamula, 61, who also prayed for Kalema has her own testimonies. It was not just about her family but also her profession. She says of her faith in intercession.
“I am a traditional birth attendant and I was treating four barren women. I would boil herbs, dip my Rosary in them, and pray to Father Ngobya. When they drunk the medicine, all of them became pregnant.”

The first miracle of the Martyrs

In 1941, Sisters Aloyse Criblet and Richildis Buck, from Switzerland and Germany, respectively, stationed at the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa in Rubaga, contracted the pneumonic plague in Kisubi.
The then Bishop ordered the people to pray to the martyrs. Their bones were placed on the Sisters and they miraculously recovered.

Doctors were called in to provide scientific proof of the miracle.
Dr. I. D. Ahmad, head of Rubaga Hospital, consulted with a pathologist and Dr. R. E. Barret, a medical officer of the British Colonial Government. He testified that in his experience, victims of the pneumonic plague never recovered. This was the first time he was witnessing it.