Blessed Daudi Okelo

The Uganda Martyrs are a group of 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican converts to Christianity in the kingdom of Buganda, now part of Uganda, who were executed between 31 January 1885 and 27 January 1887. They were killed on orders of Mwanga II, the Kabaka (King) of Buganda. The deaths took place at a time when there was a three-way religious struggle for political influence at the Buganda royal court. The episode also occurred against the backdrop of the "Scramble for Africa" – the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers. A few years after, the English Church Missionary Society used the deaths to enlist wider public support for the British acquisition of Uganda for the Empire. The Catholic Church beatified the 22 Catholic Uganda martyrs of its faith in 1920 and they were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. In 2024, the remains of two Catholic Uganda martyrs, Charles Lwanga and Mathias Mulumba, were returned to Uganda. Publication in Britain of an 1875 letter purporting to be an invitation from Kabaka Muteesa I, to send missionaries, resulted in the arrival of Alexander Mackay of the Anglican Church Missionary Society to Buganda in 1877. A group of French Catholic White Fathers, led by Père Simon Lourdel (Fr. Mapera) appeared two years later. Arab traders from Zanzibar had introduced Islam into the kingdom. This effectively led to a three-way religious struggle for political influence at the Buganda royal court. By the mid-1880s, many had been converted by each of the three groups, and some of the converts held important posts at the king's court. Muteesa himself sympathised with Islam, but many prominent chiefs had become Christians. Kabaka Mwanga II succeeded to the throne in 1884.