The highs and lows of Pope John Paul II’s visit

There is much euphoria about the impending visit to Uganda by Pope Francis, the third such papal visit here.
In February 1993, Uganda hosted Pope John Paul II after Pope Paul VI in 1969. Pope John Paul II visited Gulu District in northern Uganda, Soroti in the east, Kasese in the west and Kampala in the central region.

Inviting the Pope
When the Pope came to Uganda in 1993, Emmanuel Wamala, now Cardinal, was the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kampala and it was him and the government, that invited the Holy Father.

Cardinal Wamala says the idea came in 1991, during the periodical official visit of Catholic Bishops to Vatican City in Rome, Italy.

“It was during lunch with the Holy Father, when we presented him with our request to host him in Uganda. He promised to think about it. Upon returning home, we wrote an official letter, inviting the Pontiff,” Cardinal Wamala says.

The official response from the Vatican informed the Catholic Church that the Pontiff will pay Uganda a five-day visit.

Within the five days, they planned to have the Pope visit all the regions of the country, despite organisational challenges. At that time, the northern region was an epicentre of the Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebellion.
Alphonse Oseku, a retired civil servant with more than 20 years in protocol management, was part of the Catholic Church protocol committee during Pope John’s visit. He says the idea to have the Pope visit the different regions was aimed at reducing on the congestion in Kampala and allowing as many people as possible to see him.

“Kampala represented the entire central region, Kasese represented western region and the faithfull from eastern Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gulu represented the entire north and West Nile sub-regions, and Soroti represented eastern and north-eastern Uganda,” Oseku explains.

Though the Pope comes as a guest of the Church, the central government gets involved because a Pontiff is also a Head of State. When Pope John Paul II visited, government provided both the limousine and the helicopter he used to fly to the countryside.

Preparations and arrival
At the City Hall in Kampala, both the church and private companies erected arches to welcome the Pope and pasted posters in several places. One such arch was in Nakawa, courtesy of then LC3 chairman Mike Mukula, now the ruling NRM party’s vice chairman for eastern Uganda.

On the eve of the papal visit, a one-day papal motor rally involving 15 cars was organised and flagged off at Agip Petrol Station at Crested Towers in Kampala.
People began lining up along Entebbe highway as early as 10am on the day the Pontiff’s Alitalia A-300 Air-bus plane touched down at Entebbe.

According to Francis Lubowa, who was part of the Papal visit’s organising committee, “the Pope looked tired but the first thing he did was to kiss the ground before going ahead to shake hands with the President and his wife who received him. I think as a security precaution, there were not many people on the airport tarmac to receive him.

But there were many people waiting for him on the road to Kampala”.

Among the dignitaries to receive the Pontiff was the then vice President, Dr Samson Kisekka, Prime Minister Cosmas Adyebo and NRM vice chairman Hajji Moses Kigongo. Also in attendance was then Army Commander, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, Police Chief John Cossy Odomel, and Prison Commissioner Joseph Etima.

The guard of honor was mounted by NRA officers in green uniforms, navy blue berets, black boots and white gloves.

After the two anthems of Uganda and the Vatican, the Pope was given a 21-gun salute, after which he was chauffeured off to Kampala in an open-roof Mercedes Benz. He made several stops to wave to and bless the gathering crowd, which had been waiting to see him since morning.

Oseku says the Pope went to Nile Hotel, now Serena Kampala Hotel, for an official state banquet, before relocating to the Papal Nuncio’s residence in Mbuya, Nakawa Division in Kampala. His entire entourage was, however, booked at Fairway Hotel, whose owner, Bandali Jaffer, offered free accommodation to the team.

THE POPE IN GULU

On February 6, the second official day of his visit, Pope John Paul II flew to Kaunda Grounds in Gulu in the company of Archbishop Emmanuel Wamala, arriving at 10am. Thousands of Christians and well-wishers poured into Gulu Town in defiance of the LRA threats.

Hundreds were kept outside the Kaunda Grounds over security concerns, leaving those who travelled long distances to see the Pope frustrated. Pre-selected Christian groups from different dioceses in northern Uganda and West Nile were allowed into the stadium to attend Mass celebrated by the pontiff.

In attendance at Kaunda Grounds was President Museveni, who arrived less than an hour before the pontiff.

A hut had been erected nearby specifically for the pontiff to put on his Mass vestments. He emerged from the hut and blessed some physically-impaired faithful on his way to the venue.

Only a few of pre-selected Christians received Holy Communion directly from the Pope himself. After Mass at about 1.30pm, the Pope went to the residence of Bishop Martin Luluga, from where he departed Gulu at around 2pm.

Okello Jackson, then a 19-year-old youth residing in Gulu Town’s Kirombe suburb, says he remembers that visit as though it happened yesterday. “I never got very close to the Pope.

I only saw him as he was being driven to the stadium and he looked fantastic. I promised that when I get a baby boy, I would name him John Paul. I have done it.
”
Upon return from Gulu, he had an afternoon rest in Mbuya. Then he went to meet the youth at Nakivubo stadium that same day.
More than 50,000 youth turned up from various schools and 16 Catholic dioceses. About 250 and 50 youths from Kenya and Tanzania, respectively, joined them.

As part of the entertainment for the Pontiff, they recited poems, sung songs but the star of the evening was Veronique Nakalanzi, a 14-year-old girl, who narrated the sad story of how she was raped on her way from school when she was 13-years-old and infected with HIV.

Besides praying for the youth and counselling them against premarital sex, the Pope handed out rosaries.

Mildred Nampera, then a student at St Joseph Girls Nsambya Secondary School, was among those who went to Nakivubo. She recalls an incident which in her adult life she refers to as a national shame. “As the Pope started to talk to us, the power went off and there was total darkness. Many of us had come with candles I don’t know where the idea to light them stated from but all those with candles ended up lighting them.

With these candles lit, I remember the pope saying, ‘now the light of the youth has shone before the Pope. Dear youth, I ask you to take this same light to the people out there so that through your good words and examples, they can see the goodness of our God,” Nampera recounts

IN NAMUGONGO AND NSAMBYA HOSPITAL

Pope John Paul’s third day in Uganda saw him go to Namugongo Martyrs Shrine, where tens of thousands of people not only turned out but also lined the road from Kireka to Namugongo to receive him on February 7. The Namugongo Mass, which lasted up to four hours, had pilgrims from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and present-day Democratic Republic of Congo.

Before going to the Martyrs shrine, the Holy Father first went to the Anglican Martyrs Shrine in Nakiyanja, close to the Catholic shrine, and Archbishop Yonah Okoth and the Bishop of Namirembe dioceses, Misaeri Kauma, received him. It was while there that he met with the Ssabataka of Buganda, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, who later became the Kabaka or king.
At the Catholic shrine, he started the Mass with a few Luganda words, “Baana bange abaagalwa, mbalamusizza mwenna. Mwebale okujja. Katonda Kitaffe tumugulumize.” (I greet you all, my beloved children. Thank you very much for coming. Let us praise the Lord our Father).

The exhilarated crowd thundered in awe.
Only 10 people were selected to receive Holy Communion from the Pontiff at the Namugongo Mass, according to Alphonse Oseku, a retired civil servant, who was part of the Catholic Church protocol committee during Pope John II’s visit.
“I personally made sure I stood by as the 10 people went to the Pope for Holy Communion [and] one [of them] I recall was the late Bernard Onyango.”

On the same occasion, the shrine was declared a Minor Basilica by the Pope. After the Mass, people rushed to touch the chair in which the Pope had sat. “I had to go take away the chair to safety as some people wanted to have a piece of it as a souvenir,” he says.

After Namugongo, the Pope met all Catholic bishops at the Uganda Catholic Secretariat in Nsambya, on the outskirt of the city. On the way to the meeting venue, he branched off to St Francis’ Hospital, Nsambya, to pray for the sick.

There was no speech and the pontiff handed over a written speech to Bishop Henry Sentongo, then chairman of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau. After a few minutes at the hospital, he proceeded to the Secretariat for the audience with the bishops.

IN KASESE

Slightly before 11am on February 8, the Pope arrived at the Bishop of Kasese Egidio Nkaijanabo’s residence. Having flown to Kasese in a presidential chopper, he was picked up from the airfield in the president’s white Mercedes Benz Cross-Country. People had travelled from as far as Rwanda to come and see him.

As was the case with the youth in Nakivubo, the Pope started Mass with a few words in Rutooro, one of the local dialects in the region, saying “Abagonzebwa Omu Kristo Muroho muta?” (Friends in Christ, how are you)?

He was joined by seven bishops as co-celebrants for the Kasese Mass, where Paul Ssemwogerere, the then Second Deputy Prime Minister, represented the central government. Kasese was his only destination on the fourth day and he returned to Kampala after the Mass.

IN SOROTI
Bishop Erasmus Wandera hosted the pontiff at Soroti Sports Grounds at the time when the region was just coming out of insurgency.

He had done his homework when it came to languages of the places he visited and as such, like in Kasese, he greeted the people of Soroti in the local language.
He counselled the congregation and the theme of his sermon rotated around overcoming rivalry and hatred by putting aside the desire for revenge and embracing the virtue of forgiveness.

BACK TO KAMPALA

After Soroti, the pontiff flew back to Kampala and went to Rubaga to meet Catholic priests. He did not conduct public Mass at Rubaga and the prayer with the priests was private. Curious onlookers and lay men gathered around the cathedral to catch a glimpse of the Pope.

“It was approaching sunset when the Pope walked out of the cathedral and went to plant a tree in the compound to commemorate his visit, before going to sign the visitor’s book at the Archbishop’s residence,” said a witness who identified himself only by his first name, Francis.

On the morning of February 10, 1993, the Pope John Paul II concluded his five-day visit to Uganda. At the airport was President Museveni to see him off as he boarded the Alitalia A-30 Airbus to take him to Sudan, which was his next stop-over on his Africa trip.

Pope John Paul II

Background: Born Karol Wojtyla in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, he went to become Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow by the time he was elected Pope on October 16, 1978. He was the 263rd Pope, and chose the name John Paul II in honour of his predecessors; Pope John Paul I, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI.

He was the first non-Italian Pope since Adrian VI (1522-23) and the first Polish Pope ever.

At his election, he was the youngest pope since Pius IX (1846-78). And he lived on to become the longest-reigning head of the Catholic Church of the twentieth century. He died on April 2, 2005, at the age of 84 and became a Saint on April 27, 2014.

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