UgandaToday: Begin the Exorcism at Home: A Message to Bishop Patience Rwabwogo Museveni
By Rukirabachwezi
Congratulations, Bishop Patience
Dear Bishop Patience Rwabwogo Museveni,
Congratulations on your consecration as Bishop.
You are, as far as I know—and admittedly with little concern for your family’s ecclesiastical inventory—the first member of your family to acquire such an honour. I confess that I know little about theological hierarchies or the ecclesiastical arithmetic by which one ascends to such a title, and therefore cannot competently pronounce myself on the standards by which the mitre eventually landed on your head.
But now that you are a Bishop, with that magnificent crozier in your hand and the mitre sitting authoritatively upon your head, perhaps charity should begin at State House, Entebbe.
When the Shepherd’s Staff Meets Political Power
Can you use that shepherd’s staff to beat away the demons of your father’s rule over Ugandans?
Can you use your newly acquired ecclesiastical authority to confront your brother’s conduct towards fellow citizens?
Many Ugandans have languished in prisons, torture chambers and basements. Others have disappeared. Others, like me, have been driven into exile without passports.
Your brother has repeatedly taken to social media to boast about people in his basement. Many of these Ugandans, according to their critics and families, committed no greater offence than criticising, opposing or challenging a government controlled by your family.
Uganda has accumulated political prisoners, torture victims, exiles and disappeared citizens while your family continues accumulating titles.
The country accumulates wounds while the First Family accumulates honourifics.
What Does Your Christian Conscience Say About Besigye?
And what goes through your Christian conscience when you look at Dr Kizza Besigye?
This is the man who served as your father’s personal doctor during the bush war. He used his medical knowledge to nurse your father.
Now look at him.
Whatever political quarrel your father may have with this honourable man, what does Christianity tell his Bishop daughter when she sees a former physician of her father reduced to such a condition in the custody of a government led by her father?
There is something grotesquely circular about a revolution whose doctor eventually becomes the prisoner of the patient he once treated.
The Moral Burden of the Mitre
That is what makes your consecration interesting beyond the church ceremony.
Unless the Bishop’s title has landed on a head unwilling to understand its moral burden—just as military stars can sometimes land on shoulders without necessarily importing the wisdom supposedly accompanying them—there is something magnificently absurd about producing a great General and a great Bishop from the same presidential household while the republic beneath them groans.
Your father is President.
Your brother is a General and commander of the army.
You are now a Bishop.
Your mother has occupied high public office, including the Ministry of Education, although sometimes it is the politicians who appear most urgently in need of an education.
Between the presidency, the military, Cabinet and now the pulpit, your family has accumulated enough jurisdiction to govern the living, command the armed, educate the ignorant and negotiate directly with heaven.
Yet beneath this magnificent family curriculum vitae sits another Uganda—populated by political prisoners, torture victims, exiles, disappeared citizens, people living with HIV, corruption, malingering public servants and collapsing institutions.
At some point, one is entitled to ask what all these splendid titles are for if nobody possessing them can confront wrongdoing within the household closest to power.
A republic cannot survive indefinitely on the curious arrangement whereby one family collects offices while everybody else collects grievances.
Your Greatest Test May Begin at Home
A Bishop should recognise evil even when it shares her surname.
Indeed, that may be the real examination attached to your new title.
It is easy to preach against Satan when Satan is an abstraction conveniently residing somewhere outside the family compound. Any preacher can cast demons out of strangers.
The serious test begins when the demons know your childhood nickname.
That is where spiritual courage becomes more than ceremony.
Let the Crozier Become a Moral Instrument
The crozier, then, cannot merely become a beautifully carved accessory for photographs while the shepherd averts her eyes from wounded members of the flock.
If your episcopal office means anything beyond vestments, ceremony and another impressive family title, use its moral authority where moral courage will cost you something.
Your parents, too, need spiritual nourishment—not merely from sermons delivered in church, but from a daughter who can speak truth to them with the courage that faith demands.
Perhaps your greatest ministry may therefore be neither behind the pulpit nor beneath the cathedral dome.
Perhaps it may begin around the family table.
Speak to your father about the wounds of the country. Speak to your mother about the responsibilities that accompany proximity to power. Speak to your brother about the consequences of wielding military authority over citizens.
Remind them that political power is temporary, but moral accountability is eternal.
Congratulations Again, Bishop
Congratulations again, Bishop Patience.
You have the title.
You have the mitre.
You have the crozier.
Now comes the harder part: the responsibility that accompanies them.
If you truly wish to shepherd God’s people, perhaps the first flock requiring your spiritual nourishment is the one closest to you.
Begin the exorcism at home.
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