______________

CELEBRATING LIFE 

Laurean Cardinal Rugambwa, the former bishop of Bukoba and later Archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam Archdiocese (in Tanzania) had a deep attachment to Uganda and Ugandans. 

His actions and words depict him as a proud Tanzanian who loved Uganda more than many Ugandans. 

Rugambwa received his priestly formation at the Grand Major Seminary of Katigondo in Kalungu district, where he was also ordained a priest of the Tanzanian Catholic diocese of Bukoba on July 12, 1943. 

According to the records of the White Fathers who trained him, Rugambwa was a darling of many Ugandan seminarians, from whom he learnt to speak the indigenous Ugandan languages, including Luganda, Runyakitara, Acholi and Ateso. 

Rugambwa was also much loved by the seminarians from Rwanda and Burundi. One of the Ugandan languages he spoke so fluently is Luganda. 

People who graced Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga’s funeral at Rubaga Cathedral on April 29, 1991, will never forget his wonderful masterly of the language. 

“Although this requiem mass has been in English, I find it more appropriate to deliver my condolence message in Luganda, the beautiful language that I used to speak with my brother, Emmanuel Cardinal Nsubuga, when we were at Katigondo,” Rugambwa told the congregation before swerving into the Ganda dialect.

His Marvels 

Rugambwa (whose name means ‘future celebrity’), was born in an aristocratic family at Bukongo, Tanzania. 

His previously pagan father converted to Catholicism when Rugambwa was a seven-year-old boy. He studied catechism at the mission of the White Fathers at Kagondo, at the age of eight. 

He was baptised on March 19, 1921. Upon completing his priestly studies at Katigondo, Rugambwa was ordained a priest of Bukoba diocese by Bishop Burkhard Huwiler (White Father) on December 12, 1943. 

He subsequently worked in West Africa, until 1949. Pope Pius XII appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Lower Kagera on December 13, 1951. He was consecrated by Archbishop David Matthew on February 10, 1952. 

He became the first African bishop to be consecrated in Africa. Rugambwa was named first Bishop of Rutabo on March 25, 1953. He founded Rubya, Mugana Hospitals, and Ntungamo Major Seminary, as well as Cardinal Rugambwa Girls Secondary School. 

Pope John XXIII made Rugambwa the first African cardinal during the Consistory of March 28, 1960. On December 19, 1968, Pope Paul VI appointed him as the Archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam. Upon his death on December 8, 1997, Rugambwa was buried at Kashozi Catholic Church. 

Fifteen years later, on October 6, 2012, his remains were exhumed and reburied in the Cathedral of Bukoba. 

The cardinal was supposed to be buried inside the Cathedral immediately after his death, but it was still being renovated. Ugandan prelates, including Emmanuel Cardinal Wamala, Bishop Egidio Nkaijanabwo and Bishop Callist Rubaramira attended the reburial.