OUR LADY QUEEN OF VIRGINS, KISUBI PARISH (1896 - 2021).
Quasquicentennial Jubilee
By Hon. Paul Kawanga Ssemwogerere (OB SMACK)
May the Lord be praised!
Reflections on the long and eventful history of Kisubi Catholic Parish, formerly Kisubi Catholic Mission, gratefully bring back happy memories of the extensive contribution to the development of our country and beyond, by the dedicated Catholic clergy and religious men and women, through evangelization, notably in the fields of education and health care. We must especially note that this evangelization was undertaken at considerable personal sacrifice and risk.
I thank the Lord that together with many members of my own family we have been among the lucky beneficiaries from this evangelization; and, most significantly, that one of us, the Most Reverend Paul Ssemogerere, was recently appointed to the high ecumenical office of Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese.
Our happy family relationship with Kisubi Parish may best be traced back ninety years ago (1933) when I was still a suckling baby, when my father, Yozefu Bagenda Kapere, fell gravely ill. When he was treated at Bumangi Catholic Mission hospital, it was realized that his case was quite serious and it required more advanced facilities that were not available anywhere in Ssese Islands. In their kindness, the Mission clergy in charge decided to organize lake transport for him and transfer him to Kisubi Mission hospital on the mainland, under the expert care of the “White Sisters”, which had better facilities and superior medical staff. After some treatment at Kisubi, it became evident that our father’s illness was a terminal case; and it was decided to bring him back to Bumangi in Ssese where he later passed on and was buried in the Catholic Mission cemetery on Holy Thursday in 1933.
In the meantime, however, a strong and fruitful relationship had developafted between the Kisubi Catholic Missionaries, in particular the “White Sisters”, and our family, headed then by our mother, Maria Lwiza Namwendero, whereby out of the family’s six children four of us came to Kisubi for our education and were treated as adopted children.
The second born in the family, Alipio Kamwaanyi Luvulle, the biological father of Archbishop Paul Ssemogerere, was admitted to Kisubi St. Joseph’s Technical School where he was trained in shoe making; and the eldest, Firipo Ssemakula was enrolled in Kisubi Mission Hospital, first a dresser, and later as a para-medical. The two youngest children in the family, my sister and I, were admitted, respectively, to St. Thereza Girls Primary School and, in my case, to St. John’s Junior Boys Boarding School (1940). After obtaining the Elementary Vernacular School Certificate (Primary 4), I joined St. Henry’s Secondary School, Kitovu, in Primary Five; then returned to Kisubi for Full Primary Leaving School Certificate (Primary 6) and, thereafter, got admission into St. Mary’s College Kisubi (1947 – 52), where, among other things, I was the first-ever directly elected Head-Prefect; and from where I gained admission to Makerere, the then University College of East Africa (1953).
I regard Kisubi as the principal source of my formation; thanks, in particular to the many teachers, mostly Catholic Missionary teachers who attended to me.
Developments of Kisubi: Its Evolution, Institutional Growth and Institutional Collaboration.
Over the many years since my first school days at Kisubi in 1940, I have been a happy witness to a wide range of developments of Kisubi, to wit:
• First, Kisubi’s evolution from a simple missionary establishment with catechumenal centres (Bisomesa) to a relatively full-fledged self-sustaining Catholic Parish first with subordinate sub-Parishes, some of which also evolved into fully developed Parishes, notably: Mpala, Kabula-Muliro and Nakawuka; and
• Second, Kisubi’s institutional growth, whereby, new institutions are established at Kisubi e.g.,
- Kisubi Seminary,
- The Congregation of the Sisters of Immaculate Heart of Mary Repatrix, Gogonya,
- The society of The Brothers of St. Amans, and
- The University of Kisubi (UNIK).
Of particular significance is the fact that diversity notwithstanding, there is a remarkable degree of institutional collaboration at Kisubi, embracing institutions at the centre and reaching out to their subordinates at the periphery.
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