(National Catholic Register. Jonathan Liedl).
In an extraordinary display of the vitality of the Catholic faith in Africa, a crowd of possibly more than 4 million people gathered for Mass today on the very same grounds where some of Africa’s earliest Catholics were put to death for their faith less than 140 years ago. The annual celebration of the feast day of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, 24 young converts who were martyred by King Mwanga in 1886, drew Catholics from across the continent and beyond to a vibrant, three-hour-long liturgical celebration at Basilica of the Uganda Martyrs in Namugongo, just outside of the nation’s capital of Kampala. The celebration marked 60 years since the Ugandan martyrs were canonized by Pope St. Paul VI in the midst of the Second Vatican Council, making them the Church’s first canonized martyrs from sub-Saharan Africa.