How a Muslim helped start Catholic Church in Uganda

Islam and Christianity have rarely walked hand-in-hand. In some countries, the divide manifests in snowballing violence.
However, today in Kitebe Village, Kampala’s Rubaga Division, it is a different, contrasting display. An affectionate one.
It is a mollifying exhibition of unity at whose root is magnanimity of a Muslim family that not only welcomed, but offered land to the pioneer Catholic missionaries on their arrival in Uganda to build a church.
As residents commemorate the arrival of the first Catholic missionaries in Buganda; Fr Siméon Lourdel and Brother Amans Antoine, 140 years ago, Ms Nusura Namutebi said her grandfather, Amir Sekikkubo’s big-heartedness has made their family unique and experiencing life simultaneously through Muslim and Christian prisms.
On February 21 (the day missionaries arrived) every year at the home of the late Amir Sekikkubo, Catholic mass is celebrated and Muslims hold prayers (Duwa) back-to-back in the same building, a rare show of co-existence.
The origin of religious harmony was eventful. In the 1970’s, Muslims in the neighbouring Kiswayili Zone petitioned president Idi Amin when Musa Kaggwa Senyondwa, a Muslim, asked Rubaga to have a Catholic church constructed on the land he inherited from his father, the late Amir Sekikkubo.
They were opposed to a Muslim owned land hosting kaffirs (atheists).
Despite Amin’s intervention the church stood.

The genesis
It all began during the reign of Kabaka Suuna, Buganda’s 29th king (1832-1856).
In his palace in Wamala was one of his trusted men, Nsubuga, who was also known as Muganzi Ayirwa.
The bond was too strong that on his death, Kabaka Suuna bequeathed his chair, hunting stick and flute to him for safe custody.
According to Ms Nusura Namutebi, a great granddaughter of Nsubuga, when Suuna died, her great grandfather went on to serve in Muteesa’s palace in Lubaga where he took his son, Amir Sekikkubo, to take over from him as he aged.
“My grandfather, Amir Sekikkubo, became a close confidant of Muteesa I to the extent that he brought him from Wamala and gave him land in Kitebi, closer to his Lubaga palace. Before the arrival of the missionaries, Muteesa sent Sekikkubo and three others to Tanzania, where he converted to Islam. They were sent to learn Kiswahili, to interpret for the king when the missionaries came [to Buganda].”
Upon his return from Tanzania, Sekikkubo continued with his duties in the palace among which included overseeing the different roads Muteesa used.
One such road was the Entebbe Road through Kitebi where the two Catholic missionaries, Fr Lourdel and Brother Antoine, on their way to Buganda met Sekikkubo.
“On February 21, 1879, the two men reached Kitebi late in the evening and my grandfather housed them, promising to take them to the king’s palace the following day,” says Ms Namutebi.
From her recollection as told to her by her grandmother, Aminah Nasejje, who accompanied Sekikkubo, as he took the missionaries to Lubaga.
The palace guards thought he had come with foreigners to attack the Kabaka and started beating Sekikkubo.
“He was saved from the beating by Katikkiro Kayiira after explaining about the visitors. Sekikkubo notified the Kabaka about the new arrivals, but he declined to meeting them, deciding instead that Sekikkubo keeps them for 15 days, pending a determination of their fate by the Lukiiko (parliament),” Namutebi says.
“Sekikkubo returned with the pair for whom he built a hut on his compound where they stayed until when they met the Kabaka. Muteesa ordered that land be allocated for them in Nabulagala,” Namutebi adds.
Sekikkubo served three kings, Muteesa I, Mwanga, and Chwa. But like his father, he also took his son Musa Kaggwa Senyondwa to take over from him as he aged. Kaggwa served till the abolition of the kingdoms in 1966.
Almost a century later, after her grandfather’s hosting of the Catholic missionaries, the then Archbishop of Kampala Diocese, Emmanuel Nsubuga, came looking for the family of Amir Sekikkubo in Kitebi.
“In 1972, while still the Archbishop of Kampala, the late Cardinal Nsubuga came for my grandfather’s family on instructions from Vatican. He had received a letter from the Vatican,” Namutebi says.

Finding the family
The Holy See tasked the future Cardinal to establish details about a Muslim family that housed Fr Lourdel and Brother Amans as they had mentioned in one of their letters to Vatican.
Archbishop Nsubuga’s visit prompted Musa Kaggwa Senyondwa to, in 1973, ask the church to honour his father who hosted the missionaries — there by laying the foundation for establishment of the Catholic Church in Uganda — by building a church on their land.
It was a pleasant contrast of a Muslim helping to establish Islam.

In February 1978, Kijukizo Kya Mapeera Catholic Sub-parish was opened.
During the first mass, Ms Namutebi, in spite of being a Muslim, was the choir leader in the new Catholic Church.
Kaggwa also seconded his daughter, Nusura Namutebi, to Archbishop Nsubuga to work with the church.

“From 1974, I worked with the church land board. I was there when Nsubuga became a Cardinal and had the opportunity to go to Rome and meet the Pope,” says Namutebi.
In the 1970s, Muslims in the area were concerned, seeing a church in the courtyard of a Muslim instead of a mosque and the matter reached Amin’s attention.
He paid the home a visit. Fortunately for Kaggwa who was the wanted man, his daughter Namutebi was the first to spot president Amin.

“He came in a white Citroen car, I was cleaning the compound. He asked for my father and I told him, he was taken to Kitovu Hospital very ill [and] I didn’t know whether he would recover. He inquired why there was a church in the compound of a Muslim. I told him that the land was owned by two relatives who are brothers, but one is a Christian, and it’s the Christian who built the church. He went away but I later learnt that they had come to pick my father. That was how my father survived,” Namutebi explains.

Preservation and the future
In this home, four institutions, the Catholic Church, the Muslim faith, Buganda Kingdom and the central government through its tourism board meet.
However, not much has been done to promote its potential tourism potential.

“We want to have this place developed though we don’t have the financial means. For a couple of years now, foreign pilgrims from Nigeria and Tanzania camp here before starting their pilgrimage to Namugongo. Unfortunately we don’t have the facilities to cater for their increasing numbers, they hold overnight masses, they need shelter and the place needs to be improved to get more visitors,” says Namutebi.

The head of the laity at the church, Paul Ssendikadiwa, says despite the difference in faith, there has been a good co-existence between them and their Muslim neighbours.
During the annual celebrations to mark the day Fr Siméon Lourdel and brother Amans arrived, the Muslims celebrate with the Catholics.
They join in for Catholic mass and immediately after, the Imams hold prayers from the same pulpit.

Honouring the family

Vatican visits: During the centenary celebrations in 1979 there were anticipations that the Pope was to attend but instead he sent a representative. After the celebrations, the papal emissary while on his way to Entebbe, made a courtesy call at Amir Sekikkubo’s home. Among other religious visitors to the place included relatives of Fr Siméon Lourdel and other high-ranking Catholic Church dignitaries to the country.

Cardinal builds a mosque: Archbishop Emmanuel Nsubuga became a Cardinal in 1976 and reciprocated Sekikkubo’s generosity by building a mosque to honour his selflessness.
“In 1980, Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga built the mosque for the family of Amir Sekikkubo in memory of my grandfather, and it is still standing because the public is also using it,” the granddaughter recollects.