Suspicion mars race for new West Ankole bishop

Outgoing West Ankole Diocese Bishop Yona Katoneene (Left) with Church of Uganda Archbishop Stanley Ntagali (Right) during the commissioning of Kitagata Secondary School bus in Kitagata Archdeaconry, Sheema District in 2014. PHOTO BY ZADOCK AMANYISA

What you need to know:

Ready? The new bishop is supposed to be elected on June 4 but the committee in charge is yet to nominate the candidates while a section of Christians is demanding a transparent process in the exercise.

Bushenyi.

In December 2015, Church of Uganda started the search for a new bishop for West Ankole Diocese to replace the Rt Rev Yona Mwesigwa Katoneene, whose episcopal tenure expires in October this year.

The Synod, the diocese’s highest decision making body, sat last December at the diocesan headquarters at Bweranyangi and appointed a 15-member search committee to nominate candidates for Bishop Katoneene’s successor.
Bishop Katoneene will retire on October 3 upon turning 65 after serving 10 years as head of the diocese.

By December last year, he had already given Archbishop Stanley Ntagali the roadmap to his retirement and has since been visiting different churches in the diocese to bid them farewell.

Bishop Katoneene will announce his final farewell to the diocese at the extraordinary Synod meeting this year and use the occasion to express gratitude or disappointment with his flock for hospitality or hostility towards him.

When the Synod met in December, some members from Sheema District, who had been at loggerheads with Bishop Katoneene, shunned the meeting. However, his loyalists from Sheema South attended.

Later the head of the anti-Katoneene faction, Mr David Kiiza, said they had snubbed the meeting because they did not want to associate with the diocese.
“We declared long time ago that we are not part of West Ankole. We could not turn up for that extra-ordinary meeting,” Mr Kiiza said.

Bishop Katoneene was consecrated in February 2006 and faced opposition by some Christians from Sheema in 2012 as he tried to implement resolutions of the Diocesan Council to establish Ankole Western University study centre at Katungu in Bushenyi District.

The diocese-founded university project is at Kabwohe in Sheema District, but his opponents claimed he wanted to take it to Bushenyi.
Days after hosting Archbishop Ntagali, the diocese is in a stalemate over the choice of Katoneene’s successor.

The election committee that was set up by the Synod last December to nominate candidates for the new bishop’s post has never convened for the task.
When contacted last week on when the committee will meet to make nominations for the new bishop, the West Ankole diocesan chancellor, Mr Marvin Baryaruha, who chairs, the committee, told Sunday Monitor that they would sit this week to identify the candidates.

“There is no cause for panic. We shall meet this coming week to select the new bishop,” Mr Baryaruha said.

However by Friday, the committee had not met.
According to the report from the Church of Uganda at the Namirembe headquarters, the House of Bishops is expected to sit on June 4 to elect the new bishop from the list of candidates forwarded to them by the election committee from the diocese. The house is responsible for announcing the new bishop. However, the appointment letters for Bishop Election Committee members indicate that they are supposed to sit on June 4, the same date the House of Bishops is expected to sit to elect and unveil Bishop Katoneene’s successor.

This contradiction raises a big question on the preparedness of the committee or the transparency of the selection process for the new bishop.
There are fears that if the question of transparency is not handled properly, it might breed a new cycle of hostility to the new bishop just like the situation under Katoneene’s reign. There are queries on how the candidates are being selected. Church of Uganda canons say applications for the new bishop slot should be made open to all interested and eligible clergy.

Circulars should be written to all the clergy to enable the interested candidates to apply.
However, there are reports that the authorities at the diocese offices at Bweranyangi have been lobbying for particular candidates, causing suspicion in the transparency of the process.

Criteria
To be considered for the post of bishop in the Church of Uganda, one must be above 45 years of age, have a degree in Theology, substantive experience and must have served actively for more than 10 years in the Church of Uganda.
Bishop Katoneene denied claims that he was taking part in the selection of his successor.

“There is no way I can participate in selection of my successor. The guidelines are clear in the church canons and I can’t abuse those guidelines,” said Bishop Katoneene.

The West Ankole diocesan secretary, the Rev Can Arthur Atwine, said the chairman of the nomination committee and diocesan chancellor recently asked him for all the information concerning the nomination and selection of bishop and that he was taking the necessary steps.

The Christians are demanding to know who the candidates are, where they come from and the criteria being used to endorse them. They want Church of Uganda to intervene.

According to Canon Yowasi Makaaru, the chairman of the West Ankole rival Christian faction from Sheema, nomination of the new bishop has been added on the list demands they have petitioned the head of Church of Uganda to address but the response has been slow.

Prof Emmanuel Karooro, the West Ankole Diocese head of laity, said there is no cause for alarm in the diocese because all relevant steps were being followed to have a transparent selection of the new bishop.

“At this time, we don’t need wars. The nominations committee is going to sit as soon as it can to put things in order for election of the new bishop,” Prof Karooro said.

“We don’t have any problem with the diocese of West Ankole. Our concern is the outgoing Bishop Katoneene. Once he is out, we shall see peace if the incoming bishop focuses on putting the house in order,” Mr Kiiza told Sunday Monitor.

The contenders

The available names of interested candidates who have already submitted their credentials include the Rev Joram Ntorainwe (diocesan secretary of South Ankole Diocese), Rev Can William Twinamatsiko (Archdeacon of All Saints Church Bushenyi), Rev Can Robert Kankiriho (Chaplain of Nyabubare SS Bushenyi), Rev Can. Johnson Twinomujuni(from Ankole diocese and principal of Uganda Bible Institute Mbarara).

Others are Rev Can Amos Turyahabwe (Chaplain St Francis Chapel Makerere University), Rev Bernard Mushabe (Chaplain of Ntare School), Rev Can Caleb Twinamatsiko (Principal of Bishop Mc Alister College Kyogyera), Rev Can Godfrey Bejuura (Archdeacon Kabwohe Archdeaconry), and Rev Can Amos Magezi (former dean of Ankole Diocese and now Provincial Secretary).