These were twenty-two young men and boys, from thirteen to thirty years in age, who were martyred for the Catholic Faith in Uganda in Africa after undergoing cruel torments. Four had not yet received the sacrament of Baptism but these were baptized by Charles Lwanga after they were arrested. They were the first martyrs among the African negroes. They were canonized in 1964.
These martyrs were victims of a sodomite pagan king, concerning which readers are invited to consider Father George Rutler’s brief piece, “Ours has become a neo-pagan culture, and that can be even worse than a simple pagan culture.”
Some of the future Uganda martyrs photographed in 1885, less than a year before they were killed, at Bukumbi Mission in Mwanza. Saint Charles is No. 13.
