Millions of faithful gather June 3 for 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 Mass was celebrated at a pavilion in the middle of a manmade lake a couple hundred yards from the basilica built on the spot where St. Charles Lwanga was killed.
Those gathered were a testament to the ongoing impact of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions on the Church in Africa — which has gone from under 2 million adherents in 1900 to 236 million just over a century later.