S CHARLES LWANGA (1860-1886)

 Charles was born in the Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda, and served as a page in the court of King Mwanga II. As part of the king’s effort to resist foreign colonization, 

    the king insisted that Christian converts abandon their new faith, and executed many Anglicans and Catholics between 1885 and 1887, many of whom were officials in the royal court

     or otherwise very close to him, including Lwanga. After a massacre of Anglican missionaries, which included Bishop James Hannington and the leader of the Catholic community,

     Joseph Mukasa. The king then ordered that Lwanga, who was chief page at that time, take up Mukasa’s duties. That same day, Lwanga sought baptism as a Catholic by a missionary priest.

     Lwanga secretly baptized those of his charges who were still only catechumens. Later that day, the king called a court assembly in which he interrogated all present to see if 

     any would renounce Christianity. Led by Lwanga, the royal pages declared their fidelity to their religion, upon which the king ordered them bound and condemned them to death, 

     directing that they be marched to the traditional place of execution. Charles Lwanga and the other 21 Catholics who accompanied him in death were canonized in 1964 

     by Pope Paul VI.





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