Uganda

UGANDA. - British protectorate, comprising a territory of 243,382 sq km to the N. and W. of Lake Victoria, between Sudan, Kenya, Tanganyika and the Belgian Congo, and made up of a series of highlands (1,000 m., on average), which rest, to the west, on the volcanic masses of the Ruwenzori and of Elgon.

More than the tropical climate, malaria and sleeping sickness make the country unsuitable for whites. The population (5.1 million inhabitants; 21 per sq km) consists of Negroes (Bantu and Nilotic), with groups of Pygmies, Arabs and Indians. The prevailing crops are cotton, coffee, tea, sesame, groundnut, sugar cane and tobacco. The rubber harvest is notable. Indigenous livestock rearing counts 2.6 million head of cattle; 2.3 of goats and 1.1 of sheep. The capital, Entebbe (8,000 inhabitants), is on Lake Victoria.

Giuseppe Caraci

THE ARCHDIOCESE OF RUBAGA, FORMERLY APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF UGANDA

It is located in the central part of the Protectorate. It has an area of 40,560 sq. km. with a population of over 488,000 inhabitants and is entrusted to the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers).

It currently numbers 226,342 Catholics, of whom 213,015 are natives, 8,863 foreigners, 32 of mixed descent, and 4,432 catechumens; it further numbers 156,980 Eastern dissidents, about 31,000 Muslims and about 74,000 pagans; 30 native priests, 70 foreign priests; 47 native brothers, 7 foreign brothers of the Missionaries of Africa, 47 of Ploërmel (= Brothers of Christian Instruction); 18 major seminarians, educated at Katigondo (Masaka) and 71 minor seminarians; 56 male catechists and 32 female catechists; 419 male teachers and 257 female teachers; 1 doctor; 26 principal mission stations and 482 secondary ones, 26 churches and 483 chapels; 2 hospitals; 5 dispensaries; maternity and child welfare works; 1 printing press with a weekly (Munno) of 9,000 copies, and other minor printing initiatives; schools

196. In 1951 there were 1388 baptisms of adults; Catholic Action flourishes there.

The region of the great lakes, explored by Livingstone and by Stanley, was entrusted to the White Fathers by Pope Leo XIII with a rescript of 24 February 1878. The first two missionaries arrived at Entebbe on 17 February 1879. The first 4 baptisms were administered on 27 March 1880 and were followed by numerous others. The vicariate of Nyanza, which on 15 January 1915 became the vicariate of U., was erected in 1883. At that time it comprised the territories that today form the vicariates of Bukoba and of Lower Kagera, of Lake Albert in the Belgian Congo, of Kisumu in Kenya, of Ruwenzori, of Masaka, of Kampala and of Tororo in the Protectorate of U. The progress of evangelization alarmed the native chiefs, and the missionaries judged it opportune to withdraw toward the south in that same year 1883. There were then already 200 catechumens. Only in 1885 did they return to the territory of U. under the native king Mwanga I, who, however, in 1886 sought to annihilate the nascent Christianity, which numbered 200 baptized and 800 catechumens. Those killed were more than a hundred, of whom 22 were beatified on 6 June 1920. In 1890 U. already had 50,000 Catholics, when the English Protestants, having allied themselves with the Muslims, sought in 1892 to ruin that Christianity once again. But, once the storm had passed, the mission resumed its progress, so much so as to earn deservedly the title of "Pearl of the Missions of Africa," notwithstanding that its territory is now reduced to the proportions indicated above because of all the divisions it has undergone for the erection of other flourishing missions in full development. On 25 March 1953, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was established in U., comprising the archdiocese of Rubaga, formerly the ap. Vicariate of U.; the diocese of Gulu, formerly an ap. Vicariate; the diocese of Kampala, formerly an ap. Vic.; the diocese of Masaka, formerly an ap. Vic.; the diocese of Mbarara, formerly the ap. Vic. of Ruwenzori; the diocese of Tororo, formerly the ap. Vic. of Upper Nile. - See plate LXVIII.

Carlo Corvo