Joseph Kiwanuka: First Bishop of Uganda (1939)

Uganda is a prime example of the tensions that the development of “native” clergy aroused in the missionary world at the end of the colonial period. The first native bishop in sub-Saharan Africa in modern times, the White Father Joseph Kiwanuka, was appointed in 1939 to head the first African mission to be entrusted entirely to the local clergy: the apostolic vicariate of Masaka, in the Buddu region. Following the first decades of this mission, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, this article highlights the resistance of the White Fathers to the empowerment of Buddu and even the radicalisation of racial prejudice. It shows the importance of Rome’s action, which forced the missionaries to appoint Bishop Kiwanuka through the apostolic delegate. In this conflictual context, this work highlights the autonomous action of Kiwanuka.