“His Grace Paul Ssemogerere
Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese
RE: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION.
In January this year, His Holiness Pope Francis implored Catholics all over the world to “Fight the scourge of corruption, abuse of power, and illegality.” You too, Your Grace, have always spoken out against corruption and injustice.
I am writing to express deepest concern regarding the widespread corruption in Uganda, given that the Catholic Church is one of the few remaining moral voices in our country.
Every day, we wake up to a new corruption scandal involving billions of shillings which should be helping Ugandans out of so much suffering. The voice of the Catholic Church must become louder in condemning this vice which has crippled our nation in many sectors.
But I wish to restrict this letter to the recent scandal that has caught the attention of the nation. We recently learnt that four Commissioners of Parliament, in violation of the law and morality sat in a meeting and distributed amongst themselves public funds to a tune of Uganda shillings one billion and seven hundred million (UGX 1.7Bn), which was an act of corruption and abuse of office.
This has caused public outrage and has also attracted a censure motion in Parliament that has so far been signed by over 145 MPs. Your Grace, one of the persons at the center of this scandal is the former Leader of Opposition, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga who allocated himself half a billion shillings (UGX 500M) in that bonanza.
This money could have been used to refurbish Masaka Regional Referral Hospital or any other health facility for that matter. Even at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital, finding services like X-rays and CT-Scans is a problem. Instead of the Leader of Opposition raising such issues in Parliament, Hon. Mpuuga decided to enrich himself at the expense of poor tax payers.
To my surprise, recently while addressing the media regarding the forth coming ‘thanksgiving mass’ for Hon.
Mathias Mpuuga (an event aimed at sanitizing the corruption scandal), the chairperson of the organizing committee, ‘Pastor’ Abed Bwanika informed the nation that the Catholic Church would preside over that mass. As a Catholic 1 am concerned that such an act would drag the church into the Centre of this scandal and compromise its position as a moral voice in our society.
There have also been questions as to why the Catholic Church which has always been vocal on matters of morality has this time been conspicuously silent on this one. Is it because the person at the Centre of this scandal is a Muganda just like the archbishop? If this scandal involved someone from Northern Uganda, would the Church be this silent? Does the Catholic church in Uganda only find corruption wrong when the persons involved are from other tribes? While the church has a duty to shepherd all the flock it also has a duty to stand up for morality and uprightness and for the church to provide leadership on these fronts, it must not be used as a hiding place for the corrupt
My appeal to your Grace is that you exercise your apostolic authority to prevail on all Catholic Priests not to participate in this scandal and if they are to do so, it should be preceded by a commitment from Mr. Mpuuga to repent and seek forgiveness before God and Ugandans whose money he stole.
The Catholic church risks losing its credibility as a voice of morality if it is seen to condone corruption and give cover to persons seeking to sanitize themselves after stealing from the poor.” The letter said.
Mr.Francis Ojok is a teacher and concerned Catholic from Gulu Archdiocese who wrote a letter to His Grace Paul Ssemogerere the Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese requesting him to stop Catholic priests from celebrating a mass at @MathiasMpuuga‘s “Thanks giving Mass” which is aimed at SANITISING his corruption scandals.
The mass is scheduled for 21st June2024
