The Hypocrisy of Uganda’s Catholic Church’s Silence and Non-Action

 

Been thinking about this for some time. A columnist in the Monitor newspaper commented that the Catholic Church in Uganda was manifesting wisdom in not contributing to the ‘debate on homosexuality’ in the country. The ‘debate’ is rather one sided, and is more of a diatribe on the evil of homosexuality…, my sexual orientation. Is the Catholic Church in Uganda’s silence one of wisdom? Maybe. And maybe not.

I have compared their silence to playing deaf, dumb and blind. I have also compared them to Pope Pius the XII (so called the Nazi Pope, or Hitler’s Pope). And no, am not shy about calling them out. Hypocrites; the silence serves their purpose well.

Reminds me of one of the Nazarene’s teaching parables.
A traveller was ambushed on the road by robbers. They beat and left him for dead. Other travellers passed the robbers’ victim on the side of the road. They noticed him, but left him…, for some very logical reasons. Maybe the Levite didn’t want to be ‘polluted’, and maybe one of the others was hurrying to a wedding…, whatever. Till the ‘Good Samaritan’ stopped and helped the victim of robbery…, silence prevailed.

Cogent reasons not to speak out and act. Very logical and good, maybe.

The country is on fire, ready to lynch the homosexuals. Would the very powerful Catholic Church please stand up and say something? Well, the Moslems have had their say. The Anglicans have had their say. The Pentecostals have also had their say. What of the Catholics? Are they leaving everything to the politicians? It is supposedly a ‘moral’ debate.

Why is the Catholic Church in Uganda silent?
Have they released a statement? They were waiting for the ‘entire bill’. Still on its way to Rubaga?
I must have been asleep. I didn’t hear…! Or they are yet to say anything?

Maybe the reasons are political. The Pontiff, Pope Francis, has not been silent. Homosexuality is a sin. He is definite. And, criminalising it is not okay. Unequivocal, and vocal, repeatedly. How can the Catholic Church in Uganda go against the Pontiff when he has made his mind known? Bad politics, at the very least.

What if the Pontiff is wrong? These are sinners, the homosexuals. Isn’t the mighty Catholic Church of a mind to reserve them for hell on earth, life in prison, and Death? Or are they against the death penalty? [In principle, as the head of the Church of Uganda hurries to admit. In principle, reality is different.]

Could it be that the mighty Catholic Church in Uganda dare not admit that these are sinners, just like the ones Christ used to associate with?

Or, is it that the popularity of rabid condemnation of the minority homosexuals in Uganda is not good to go against, for the moral power and popularity of the Church, Christ’s Church? One needs to remind ones’ self that it does matter, popularity. It takes guts to champion homosexuals in Uganda in anyway… That is brutal matter of fact.

Or could it be that the homosexuals are such bad sinners that no hand need be lifted to help or aid them in their plight.
Leave them to die on the side of the road, I would judge. Good riddance, to bad evil. Why waste time, energy, prestige and even thinking about them?

Yes, I am strongly reminded of the stance of Pope Pious XII.
He was strangely silent through the Holocaust of the Third Reich. So much that he was branded ‘Hitler’s Pope’, and a silent Nazi sympathiser to the genocide of Jews. And, yes, those with the pink triangles were homosexuals. Gassed in gas chambers by Hitler too, they haven’t improved in the popularity context since, apparently!

Oh, I am certain that the mighty and powerful Catholic Church in Uganda is silent because they totally agree and support Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023.
That is why I am poking at them…, it is good fun!

 

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Uganda Catholic Church’s Silence

Uganda’s Catholic Church Fathers are playing Blind, Deaf and Dumb.., to the Anti-Homosexuality Death Bill…

Have I been too harsh judging their silence? 

No. I am not.
Ugandans, like a lot of African countries, are quite religious. Religious organisations are powerful here. Just look at how the Inter-religious Council actually initiated passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023.
But, apart from that power, these powerful men and women are highly hypocritical. The talk is just talk. What they do, how they behave would be scandalous, in any country other than Uganda. You remember Pastor Ssempa showing gay porn in church?   It is exposure in the foreign press that actually stopped him. In Uganda, he showed it multiple times in Churches and other public spaces, and it was only remarkable in the numbers who took the time to go ‘see for themselves’.
Someone took the trouble to list, without names, some of the ‘more recent’ Pastors scandals here. From bigamy, adultery, ‘homosexuality’ and others.

Calling out the Uganda Catholic Church’s deep, abiding hypocrisy, when I have the utterances of the Pope, the current, living, Pope to support me is just sense. 

I am [relatively] sure that when they comment on Uganda’s Homosexual Death bill, they will be the essential biblical Pharisee hypocrites, [in this story]  and they will throw up their hands and say, oh, we don’t agree with a few things, but the bill is law…!

In the AP interview on 25^th Jan 2023, Pope Francis noted that some Catholic Bishops advocated for criminalisation of homosexuality. He had just stated that homosexuality is a sin, just as much as a lack of ‘charity’ was also a sin… He stated.

“Acknowledging that some Catholic bishops nevertheless support criminalization, he said “these bishops have to have a process of conversion,” adding that they should apply “tenderness.””

Is the silence from the Catholic Church in Uganda the sort of ‘tenderness’ Pope Francis is talking about?

Or is it playing the Pope Pius XII handbook, hoping for exoneration later on?

 

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Uganda Catholic Church Playing Mute, Deaf, Dumb; A Pope Pius Moment

 

Uganda Catholic Church’s Pope Pius XII Moment

I love Uganda. Well, sort of.
They are my people; much sweeter because they reject me, a gay Ugandan. Kuchu. One of our national faults is a pride and conviction that we are unique, just because we are Ugandan. The world outside dares object? So what? [As Speaker Annet Among so eloquently stated], We believe we are blazing our own historical path, even when we are stumbling around repeating historical mistakes.

Take our collective, (characteristically Ugandan) homophobic madness.
Historically it is not new, nor unique. After all, the Sodomy laws currently on our statute books were inherited from the old British Empire, more than 60 years ago. And more than 90 years ago, the Fuhrer of Nazi Germany, Herr Hitler, had a vision. Eliminating the weak, to build a nation of the Strong. The weak were defined as ‘evil’ Jews, ‘defective’ mentally challenged individuals, ‘deviant’ homosexuals and political enemies, of course.
Hitler’s German mandated an open labelling of the weak in public; the yellow star for the Jew, the pink triangle for the homosexual. Thus openly identified, they were rounded up, taken to ‘concentration camps’, and killed, in the ‘Final Solution’.

What did the Church do, during that time of horror?
What brave words and actions of Christian love and compassion and charity were shown by the Church of Christ?

Pope Pius XII was the Pope during Nazi times. The Pope of the Era.

And, it was what Pope Pius did, or did not do, that has coloured his legacy.
What did the Pontiff know? What did he do about what he knew?
His deafening silence was certainly noted, after the madness of the Holocaust. Did he know that human beings were being carted off to death in huge camps? Was he silent because he feared for himself and the Catholic faithful? Or was he actually complicit, preferring not to know? Was he a secret Nazi sympathiser, sympathetic to what they were doing? [after all, the world at that time was definitely homophobic and anti-Semitic.] It’s quite natural to assume that the Pope, and the ‘Church Fathers’ could have been secretly sympathetic, in spite of the Church’s official message of love.

This is controversial. A controversy that has not yet been settled. Apparently, the Catholic Church, in typical Catholic Church fashion, had whitewashed Pope Pius XII.   But, questions were asked, and the opening of the archives has led to more questions.

“The long-awaited opening of Pope Pius XII’s wartime records lasted only a week before the coronavirus outbreak shut down the Vatican archives. But that was long enough for documents to emerge that reflect badly on the pontiff accused of silence during the Holocaust, according to published reports.” 

Fast forward to today. 2023.
An anti-homosexual bill in the Parliament of Uganda. A Homosexuals Death Bill. 
Not the first time, that was 2013-14. This is the second time. The first time, the bill was introduced with the Death clause, which was removed during debate. This time the ‘life imprisonment’ and death clauses were ‘enhancements’ during the Parliamentary marathon debate session on 21^st March 2023.

Pope Francis has been quite vocal. He is asserts that, according to Catholic teaching [and he is the Pope], homosexuality is not a sin. But not a crime. And those who seek to make it a crime are mistaken, etc. 

Pope Francis is in Vatican, Rome. He is a frail old gentleman, 86. But, he is the Pope, and quite active.

And, the Catholic Church in Uganda? Believe it or not, they are yet to ‘study the bill’!!! 

Is this the Uganda Catholic Church’s Pope Pius moment?

The parallels between Pope Pius and the Catholic Fathers in Uganda are nothing less than striking. History literally repeating itself. Smacks of hypocrisy.

The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda met on 15^th February 2023.
Its my humble speculation that it was that meeting that kicked off the official process. Uganda’s major religious leaders had met and determined that enough was enough. Uganda had to have an anti-homosexual bill, to solve all its gay problems. Details were reported here.

Curiously, there was no mention of a representative from Uganda’s Catholic Church; because the Catholic Church is not represented?
The Protestants, the Catholics, the ‘balokole’  and Moslems were all represented. Catholicism is the most populous religious denomination in Uganda. But, on the agenda was homosexuality. Didn’t get an invitation?

On 29^th March, 2023 the Archbishop of the Diocese of Kampala came up with a statement. Apparently [curiously], the Catholic Fathers had not yet met to see the bill, and give their consensus statement. 

““Regarding what has come out of Parliament once we have the entire Bill, as Fathers of the Catholic Church we will come together to discuss that Bill and give the position of the Catholic Church in Uganda.””

Curious, curious, curious.
Is Rubaga (seat of the Catholic Church in Uganda) as far away as Rome is? Is bureaucracy in the Catholic Church in Uganda that cumbersome? That slow?
In the last couple of months, for an issue that has literally excited the attention in Uganda and beyond, formal and informal, were the Catholic Fathers totally absent from the country?

Why is the Catholic Church in Uganda playing Blind, Deaf and Dumb? I continue to ask!

Or is it because they have a Pope Francis problem? 
Hey, I am an interested but outside observer. I am allowed to ask, no?

I am quite, quite curious about what the contents and product of their markedly wise deliberations will be. They will be portent and powerful, full of Fatherly words of wisdom and compassion and love.
Of course, by then, [and I assume by intention], the debate will be done, the advice useless. The bill is passed, awaiting the President’s signature. It will get the signature. It will become law.

The perfect Pope Pius moment for the Catholic Church in Uganda.

Are we to assume that the mighty Catholic Church has been caught up and is helpless? Or, are they complicit, in silence as well as in actuality? Back seat fans?
We know major actors are Catholic faithful; Honourable Reverend Father Charles Onen who moved the bill’s first motion and House Speaker Among the bill’s Chief Whip. And of course, Speaker Among is rallying troops now, for the Great Anti-Homosexual War battles.

Frankly, in my biased view, the statement from Archbishop Ssemogerere, of the Kampala Diocese was explicit inits starkness.     The Church has taken out the Pope Pius playbook, is reading and acting on it.
Instead of asking whether the Catholic Church in Uganda is having a Pope Pius moment, I am convinced that they are, and am speculating at what kind of treatment history will have of the Uganda’s Catholic Fathers of this moment.

 

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