Kizza, Tobie

The first Muganda ever to become a Brother of the White Fathers Mission. He was born of pagan parents at Burigi in Mawokota about 1872 and started to receive Christian instruction in 1886, the year of the Uganda Martyrdom. He was batpized in 1890 by Fr. Lourdel who took him to Europe the same year, when he heard Cardinal Lavigerie to speak against slavery. In 1892 he entered as a postulant brother in Algeria, taking the habit on January 15, 1893. He returned to Uganda in 1896 and was posted to the Sesse Islands. He took his perpetual vows in 1905. At different times of his life he worked at many different places in Uganda; in Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole, Buganda and Kigezi. At the age of eighty he received his final posting from Ibanda, which he loved, to Rwera, travelling old and feebile though he was in the back of a lorry, and never thinking to complain. He was a thorough and careful workman, not qualified in any special skill but able to do a bit of everything from masonry to carpentry. He had also learned a little medicine during a time spent in Malta, and loved to help the sick. Throughout his life he practised extreme poverty and had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, getting up an hour earlier than everyone else in order to pray before it in church. Never taking offense and never speaking uncharitably of others, he was loved by all.

Louise Pirouet

This article, used by permission, was written by Louise Pirouet, as part of A Dictionary of Christianity in Uganda (Department of Religious Studies, Makerere University College, 1969), p. 36. Copies available at Africana Section, Makerere University Library (AF Q 276.761 MAK and AR/MAK/99/1); Bishop Tucker Library, Uganda Christian University and in UK at the University of Birmingham; Crowther Centre Library, CMS Oxford and Louise Pirouet Papers, Cambridge Centre of African Studies.