Lessons from the story of St Gonzaga Gonza

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OPINION

By Haji Faruk Kirunda

This Sunday. July 6 is the national celebration of St Gonzaga Gonza Day at Bugonza Shrine in Kaliro district, the birthplace of one of the Uganda Martyrs. President Yoweri Museveni is expected to be the chief pilgrim.

The story of Gonzaga Gonza, one of the Catholic converts martyred on the orders of Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda, is one of unforgettable, extraordinary bravery and composure amidst adversity. Gonza, a Musoga from Bugonza in Bulamogi, was the sixth to be martyred.

According to the Kampala Archdiocese website and information provided by Fr. Ronald Isiko, the Parish Priest of St Gonzaga Gonza Shrine, Gonza was the son of Gonzabato and was brought to Buganda and grew up in the family of Nkambo Buluusi, who treated him as his own son. He was born around 1862 in Busoga.

Young Gonzaga behaved well and was obedient, exceptionally kind, trustworthy, intelligent and hardworking. He was taken to King Muteesa’s palace aged about 12 years. He first professed Islam, then Protestantism and later became a Catholic being baptised on November 17, 1885.

Gonzaga was a zealous and pious Catholic. His loyalty and, in my view, something that portended his natural tendency to give his all for what he believed in was when he offered to go to prison on behalf of Namulabira, one his fellow palace pages, who had been falsely accused of befriending a princess and Nankya, one of the kings wives.

Each of the modes of execution of the Uganda Martyrs was dreadful, but Gonza’s was exceptional. He was arrested at Munyonyo.

According to information from the Munyonyo shrine website, usually after the condemnation, the condemned had to be taken to Namugongo to be burnt to death. On their way from Munyonyo, where the cruel judgment was passed, prisoners first went to Mengo.

The Musoga page, Gonzaga Gonza, was part of the group which left Mengo for Namugongo on the morning of Thursday, May 27, 1884, but, in spite of his effort to keep up with his companions, he soon fell behind the rest of the party.

Like some of his fellow victims, he had spent the night in chains; but in his case, the chains around his legs had been fixed so tightly that, during the night, the flesh had swollen around them, and it was found impossible to unfasten them in the morning.

He had to set out on the 10-mile journey with the chains biting into his flesh, and could only drag himself along slowly, every step an agony.

Before long, raw wounds encircled his legs and blood trickled to the ground. Although the fierce sun and the flies, attracted by the scent of blood, contributed to his suffering, Gonza displayed an almost unbelievable heroism in struggling along after his fellows for over seven miles. Finally, in sight of Lubaawo hamlet, at a spot where three roads met, he collapsed.

The custom of butchering a prisoner at each road junction was highly respected in Buganda culture, and was probably not unknown to the martyr. It may well have been this knowledge, as much as sheer physical exhaustion, that made the gallant youth fall to the ground at this spot and wait for the stroke that would release him from his agony. It came from the spears of the executioners or, according to one report, from that of Mukaajanga, who had waited there for the foot dragger. One of the executioners later paid tribute to the courage displayed by this young man of 24. “That boy,” he said, “was very brave; he did not show any signs of fear.”

Humiliated to the last, Gonza’s body was left lying on the road two or three days after his death.

The head had been severed from the trunk. After a week, those returning from Namugongo saw only the martyr’s hair on the road, with vultures and wild animals thought to have devoured all flesh from the corpse. That is the martyr that will be celebrated this Sunday, even as Martyrs Day in honour of the whole martyred party was held last month on June 3 (an annual celebration).

Fr Isiko notes that Gonza was the last born of the 18 children of his father.

In 1880, Mukunya Kitabanga, the heir of late Gonza Kisira Nadoyi, Gonza’s father, divided the ancestral land among the children of his brothers. Gonzaga was given the whole of Bugonza land and also the responsibility of taking care of his late father’s graveyard even when he had left for Buganda. The land which was given to him as his share covered Nakalanga, Bukongole, Kasozi, Nakisenyi and Kalungu, literally known as Ebisoko by Gonza.

In 1890, Mukunya Kitabanga and his siblings, together with their paternal Uncle Kisira Wambuzi Zibondo, upon hearing of Gonzaga having died for the Catholic faith (martyred), they donated his share of the land to the Catholic Church.

The land was handed over to Fr Konkoman, who appointed Mr Noori, who was coming from Kalamira, as the first catechist in 1895, and immediately the Church started under a tree across the road. In 1910, the Church started a sub-grade school there.

After the canonisation of the Uganda Martyrs in 1964, Fr Kalori, the then Parish Priest, constructed a permanent church the following year (1965), which is still in existence.

The first pilgrimage was on July 1, 1956, underthe  Mukunyu tree, and Fr Dulumen was the first priest to preside over Mass while he was the Parish Priest of Budini.

On July 2, 2023, Rt. Rev. Charles Martin Wamika, the Bishop of the Diocese of Jinja, elevated the place to parish status and appointed Fr Isiko as the pioneer parish priest who is still serving to date.

Bugonza Parish, for all its historic significance, has continued to attract multitudes of pilgrims yearly who flock there for the blessings got from this site because of St Gonzaga Gonza. St Gonza represents a bridge between our cultural heritage and our Christian identity, and his shrine in Bugonza has the potential to become a centre of national spiritual renewal, unity and tourism.

The sacred site will be transformed for generations to come.

For his extraordinary faith and courage, St Gonzaga Gonza, like his fellow martyrs, left a defining challenge for contemporary believers.

The faith that we profess cost blood and lives, more or less like the NRM/NRA liberators, albeit in a different sphere of self-sacrifice. Had the martyrs been cowards or “transactional” believers only out to benefit themselves, they would have denounced their faith early on.

Christianity and Islam would have suffered a stillbirth in this blessed land. We would be Godless people with no spine or moral compass. Above all, it is a big challenge to some clergy whose ministry is all about benefiting the self and sowing seeds of discord in society.

The writer is a special presidential assistant — press & mobilisation/deputy spokesperson Email: faruk.kirunda@statehouse.go.ug 0776980486/0783990861