Basilica of the Uganda Martyrs, Namugongo

Why Go

Where the road of 1886 is still prayed

Come here to honor St. Charles Lwanga and companions, to ask their intercession, and to celebrate the Eucharist on the ground of their martyrdom. Namugongo is a living shrine, the culmination of a Catholic sacred geography that begins at Munyonyo. Come to pray, to keep June 3 if you can, and to remember that thirteen of the twenty-two were killed here, not all of them.

Twenty-two Catholic martyrs, and a hill

The persecutions of 1885–1887 took place in the political and religious world of the Buganda royal court: rapid evangelization, Catholic and Anglican missions, anxiety about foreign influence, court politics, and demands the Christian converts believed they could not obey. Paul VI's 1964 canonization letter is explicit that the pages resisted the kabaka's obscene invitations and would rather die than violate the law of God. That is part of the witness. It is not the only cause of the persecution, and it does not exhaust who the martyrs were.

On October 18 1964 Paul VI canonized Charles Lwanga, Matthias Mulumba Kalemba, and twenty companions. That is twenty-two Catholic saints. Benedict XV had beatified them on June 6 1920. Their feast is June 3. The same 1964 letter divides them by death: thirteen were taken to Namugongo hill and burned on June 3 1886; nine were killed by spear or other means in other places. St. Charles Lwanga, head of the royal pages, was separated for a ritual execution and burned apart from the others. The shrine identifies the present altar with that spot.

They did not all walk from Munyonyo together, and they were not all killed here. St. Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe belongs to the earlier persecution of 1885. St. Andrew Kaggwa was killed at Munyonyo. St. Matthias Mulumba died elsewhere. Namugongo is the culmination of the principal 1886 journey, not a single pyre for the whole twenty-two.

Anglican Christians were martyred in the same persecutions. Paul VI said at the canonization that he did not wish to forget those who, belonging to the Anglican confession, met death for the name of Christ. He honored them again at Namugongo in 1969. Francis, celebrating Mass at this Catholic shrine on November 28 2015, remembered the Anglican martyrs whose deaths for Christ testify to an ecumenism of blood. Their shrine at Namugongo is a different place, further east. Do not collapse the two lists.

Paul VI came here on August 2 1969 to honor the martyrs and to bless the altar of the sanctuary then being raised. John Paul II celebrated Mass here on February 7 1993 and announced the shrine's elevation to a minor basilica; the apostolic letter Inter apostolicam of April 28 1993 identifies this church as built where St. Charles Lwanga suffered martyrdom. Francis came as a pilgrim on November 28 2015.

The basilica is a circular church about forty-two meters in diameter. The shrine describes its form as inspired by a traditional hut, with twenty-two seamless-steel pillars, each for one of the Catholic martyrs, and a steel-and-glass dome rising from the roof. Seating is on the order of a thousand; the grounds and Martyrs Lake are what hold the great June congregations. Construction of the present shrine began in 1967 under Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga; the shrine names ROKO Construction and the architect Justus Dahinden. It was opened on June 3 1975 by Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli. Paul VI had already blessed the altar in 1969, while the sanctuary was still being raised.