Church appeals for peace in 2012

 By Josephine Maseruka                                     

Catholic Bishops have appealed to Ugandans to ensure that peace prevails in their homes in the New Year 2012.

Delivering their New Year message, the Bishop of Lugazi diocese Mathias Ssekamanya regretted that in most families there is infighting, quarrelling and terrible incidents of domestic violence which are detrimental to national development.

“Married people fear each other and whenever they fight or have verbal exchange, the children are affected.

We pray for more justice to prevail so that in case of a disagreement the couple finds room for reconciliation and mutual forgiveness.”

The Bishop was concerned by the increasing cases of acid attacks which are common in Kampala and her suburbs.

Mulago national referral hospital registered four acid victims during the festive Christmas season among them Johnson Kayondo,  Shamim Kaitesi , Nelson Owori and Kawooya Wasswa. They are being treated for severe burns in ward 2C.

Pastor Umar Mulinde of the Gospel Life church International, located in Najjanankumbi along the Kampala-Entebbe road was last Saturday night attacked at his Church, and the acid left his face partly disfigured and he too is undergoing treatment at Mulago.

Sources at Mulago said that acid victims could be more because some cases are not registered.

Ssekamanya stated, “Where there is peace there is development. Do to the other what you want to be done to you. Killing, pouring acid, rights abuses are things that must be avoided this year.”

Kampala Archdiocese spokesperson Msgr. Wynand Katende  said that Ugandans should  in the new year avoid fighting individuals but rather the evil- corruption if the vice is to be stopped.

 “We always pray that … delivers us from all evil, we don’t say deliver us from evil people. Each of us has in one way or the other an evil spirit and you find that almost all people are corrupt.”

 Katende regretted that Ugandans have joined the corruption circle which he said is mainly spread by some politicians.

 “When you accept to give your vote to a politician who has given you some money better shut up when such a politicians does not deliver in parliament because he would be busy finding ways how to raise money that he used during the campaigns. This puts majority of Ugandans in that circle of corruption.”

He said in the new year Ugandans must fight the evil spirit of corruption. “President Yoweri Museveni set up the national resistance Council; let us also start a resistance campaign against corruption in 2012.”

Katende was also perturbed by the increasing environmental degradation calling for the intervention of government, the religious and all stakeholders to ensure that they are sensitization programmes especially on garbage disposal.

“People are just dumping garbage anyhow. This is a social sin unlike any other sin that an individual quietly commits. Poor garbage disposal leads to pollution.”

He added,” God gave us a beautiful country but people forget that we are part of nature. No amount of money can buy life. We must avoid the reckless cutting of trees to replace them with factories which would employ a few people moreover who would be operating in un hygienical conditions in a polluted world.”