Church releases programme for Pope’s visit to Uganda
KAMPALA - The Alitalia plane carrying the Holy Father is expected to touch down at Entebbe International Airport at 4:50pm on Friday, November 27, 2015, the Apostolic Nuncio to Uganda Micheal Blume says.
In a statement on Saturday, Archbishop Blume says the pontiff who flies in from Kenya will spend 40 minutes at the airport and head for a half-hour meeting with President Museveni at the nearby Entebbe State House.
Organisers of the trip agreed ten days ago that forty Christians from each of the nineteen Catholic dioceses in the country, eighty members of the organising committee and another 200 guests comprising journalists, government officials and Entebbe municipality residents will receive the Pope on arrival.
Officials expect the 760 representatives from the dioceses to wear traditional attire to give colour to the welcome event. They will assemble at Bugonga Parish from where they will be transported to the airport. A total one thousand people are expected at the airport to receive Pope Francis, who after meeting President Museveni, will drive to Kampala while making expected stop-overs to wave to and bless pilgrims along the highway.
He will that same evening hold separate audiences with foreign diplomats accredited to Uganda and later, at Munyonyo Martyrs Shrine, with a congregation of about 570 catechists, 220 teachers and more than 200 couples.
The Church is mobilising about 100, 000 faithful to receive the Holy Father’s entourage of forty outside the church in Munyonyo, with entertainment provided by a 350-strong choir. There will also be 150 ecumenical persons, thirty bishops and 300 Munyonyo parishioners for the 7:15pm papal audience.
The Pope has a packed Saturday, his only full day in Uganda. At 8:30am, he will be at the Nakiyanja Protestant martyrs shrine in Namugongo, Wakiso district, and Church of Uganda has been given the leeway to select its clergy and other guests for the half-hour meeting with him.
He will depart for the nearby Catholic Namugongo Martyrs Shrine and conduct his main open-air mass beginning at 9:30am. The Uganda Episcopal Conference a fortnight ago proposed, subject to security clearance, to open the holy shrine on Friday evening for an estimated two million pilgrims to gather overnight.
The decision is to free up the road in time for some 2, 800 VIPs and the papal convoy the next day.
Among those expected at Namugongo Catholic Martyrs Shrine are 70 foreign bishops and 33 Ugandan counterparts, 2, 800 catholic priests, 700 accredited government and 20 invited Uganda Joint Christian Council officials.
“The implication is that 1, 000 seats for the religious will be occupied by other VIPs and that Namugongo (Martyrs Shrine) [is] to be opened on November 27 at 2pm and closed on November 28 at 7am to allow for VIPs to access the venue and free the road for the papal convoy in view of the [day’s] tight schedule,” minutes of an October 6 preparatory meeting reads in part.
Children will particularly be seated in strategic positions to catch the eye of Pope Francis who, by previous travel examples, is certain to randomly pick up some to kiss and bless.
Organisers expect 2 million people, about 6 per cent of Uganda’s population, at the holy mass.
The Pope will return to Kampala city for a 3:15pm meeting with some 10, 000 youth drawn from the nineteen local Catholic dioceses, fifteen universities, six major seminaries, catholic movements and organisations as well as inter-religious groups. Seminarians are the choice ushers at all of the papal events in Uganda, according to ongoing discussions at high-level preparatory meetings.
Because the government has banned sale of food at the Kololo ceremonial grounds, accredited youth and guests are expected to feed from outside before assembling at the venue.
Fr Phillip Odii, the executive secretary of UEC, circulated the full programme to media houses on Saturday. It shows that Pope Francis will after the November 28 Kololo youth meeting visit the Catholic church-run charity home in Nalukolongo, a city suburb, to meet up 600 homeless children and the elderly alongside HIV-positive people drawn from eleven private institutions and care homes.
The pontiff will conclude his busiest day in Uganda with a 7pm meeting with 2, 500 priests, religious men and women and seminarians at Rubaga Cathedral outside Kampala, before leaving for the Central African Republic the next morning.
