“Katonda!”
This year, using the Traditional Missale Romanum, we celebrate today the Feast of St. Charles Lwanga. The decree Cum sanctissima allows for the celebration of Saints canonized after 1962 provided that the day is not some feast that would outweigh it.
If you don’t know this saint, be sure to read this. It is powerful.
As “Pride” month continues…
Today is the feast of St. Charles Lwanga and companions, murder victims and martyrs of homosexual depravity.
Today we might also contemplate the various ways in which the State is encroaches in our lives in this regard and tries to force us to do things that are repugnant to nature and to God’s laws.
Today we should especially ask God to forgive and convert all those who in any way have contributed to or succumbed to any aspect of what is rightly called toxic “gender theory” and called demonic, due to its origin.
More on that HERE and HERE and HERE.
Today is the feast day of a saint, who died as a martyr especially because he resisted a sodomite king, who was furious that he and many children wouldn’t have homosexual sex with him.
St. Charles Lwanga and many other martyrs died between 1885 and 1887 in Uganda. They were beatified in 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
In 1879 the White Fathers were working successfully as missionaries in Uganda. They were, at first well received by King Mutesa.
Then there came a new pharaoh, as it were.
Mutesa died and his son, Mwanga, took over. He was a ritual pedophile.
Charles Lwanga, a 25 year old man who was a catechist, forcefully protected boys in his charge from the king’s sodomite advances.
The king had murdered an Anglican Bishop and tried to get his page, who was protected by Joseph Mukasa, later beheaded for his trouble. On the night of the martyrdom of Joseph Mukasa, Lwanga and other pages sought out the White Fathers for baptism. Some 100 catechumens were baptized.
A few months later, King Mwanga ordered all the pages to be questioned to find out if they were being catechized. 15 Christians 13 and 25 identified themselves. When the King asked them if they were willing to keep their faith, They answered in unison, “Until death!”
They were bound together and force marched for 2 days to Namugongo where they were to be burned at the stake. On the way, Matthias Kalemba, one of the eldest boys, exclaimed, “God will rescue me. But you will not see how he does it, because he will take my soul and leave you only my body.” He was cut to pieces and left him by the road.
When they reached Nanugongo, they were kept tied together for seven days while the executioners prepared the wood for the fire.
On 3 June 1886 (that year the Feast of the Ascension… therefore a Thursday), Charles Lwanga was separated from the others and burned at the stake. The executioners burnt his feet until only the charred stumps remained. He survived. His tormentors promised that they would let him go if he renounced his Faith. Charles refused saying, “You are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water over my body.” They set him on fire.
As flames engulfed him he said in a loud voice, “Katonda! – My God!”
“Katonda!” … Better than “Wakanda!”
His companions were also burned together the same day. They prayed and sang hymns.
Charles Lwanga and companions died for their Faith and because they resisted the intrinsically evil of homosexual sex.
[…]
Charles Lwanga, pray for us!
Katonda!
Thanks to the Great Roman. Here are a couple of shots of the canonization ceremony for St. Charles and companions…. during Vatican II.
Meanwhile….
Pope Francis today appointed the following three prelates as members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. All have defended the Church’s moral teaching and marriage between a man and a woman. However:
Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for… pic.twitter.com/qy9zxgzRo5
— Edward Pentin (@EdwardPentin) June 1, 2024
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The 3 newly appointed prelates to the DDF might say marriage is between a man & woman but that definition is apparently not a barrier to behavior not between a man & woman.
St. Augustine wrote “right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” Would that we (myself included) would stand for right when the world says otherwise. Easy to say, but it is hard to stand against world.
If you look on Ugandan webpages, there’s a surprising amount of information about the backgrounds and personalities of most of these young saints and martyrs.
I highly recommend the Munyoyo Martyrs’ Shrine website for this kind of info. Click on one of the pictures of the martyrs, and you will find out all kinds of information about him.
https://www.munyonyo-shrine.ug/
St. Luka Baanabakintu was not one of the royal pages. But he and another catechist (who also ended up a martyr) used to trade off walking 42 miles to go to Confession and Mass on Sundays at the mission (starting on Friday); and would then memorize what was said in the sermon, walk 42 miles back to his village, and recite the sermons word for word for the Christians in his village to hear.
When he learned of the new persecutions against Christians, he was away and could have evaded, but he reported back to his chief and demanded to be turned in to the king. He also said that there was no need to restrain him, because he would not run, because he did not want to get his chief in trouble with the king.
St. Mattias Mulumba Kalemba is another martyr who had an extremely eventful life, going from free, to war captive slave child, to adopted son of his owner, to chief, to Christian missionary, to martyr over three days of torture. His wife Kikuwa attempted to be martyred with him, but was turned away; and she lived a long, pious Catholic life as a widow.
Seriously, it’s an amazing website.
There is an artist in Canada who creates oil paintings. Her name is Tianna Williams. She has done a painting of Charles Lwanga, it’s an amazing image. I never knew his story, I knew a martyr but didn’t realize it was also a martyrdom of purity. Charles Lwanga, intercede for our youth!
My son-in-law professionally does sacred art sculpture, and he has done one showing St Charles Lwango as the flames grow. I don’t know where it now rests, but can find out.
Following up: the St Charles Lwanga sculpture is at Holy Rosary Church in the Bronx.
The blog item on St Charles is a gem, More like it, please!
Your 2019 post, which is very similar to this was used as an article citation for St. Charles Lwanga on Wikipedia.
I recall reading a comment from years ago about King Mwanga II’s “conversion” to Anglicanism as though it was miraculous. Unfortunately, he was forcibly (involuntarily) “converted” and forcibly “baptized” by the British. He apparently had no choice in the matter. It was that or torture/death. His whole life was intent on escape and recapturing his country. He did not like Catholics, Protestants, or Muslims. I could understand not liking Islam, but still…
He died in imprisonment of the tortures inflicted by the British. We can always hope that he truly converted, I suppose…
EWTN’s Colm Flynn posted a story of the celebrations of this year:
https://twitter.com/colmflynnire/status/1799191122117374126
Beautiful images. Great celebration with a sea of humanity. There is something special about African choral voices.