Dear Partners in Evangelization,
I am excited to share with you the amazing experience a group of us recently had during an almost two-week mission to Uganda. I was joined by Bishop Scott McCaig, of Canada’s Military Ordinariate, who is a long-time friend and member of the Canadian Catholic Renewal Ministries Board of Directors. The organizers also asked my wife, Anne, to come. We were grateful to experience the beauty of God’s work in Uganda together. Deacon Larry Oney and his wife, Andi, who are involved in helping a school in Uganda, also assisted us. Deacon Oney is a member of Renewal Ministries’ US Board of Directors. And Alicia Hartle, executive director of Pentecost Today USA (the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the US), participated in the general conference.
Renewal Ministries has been blessed to support the work of the Emmaus Center, which is north of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, for more than twenty-five years. The Emmaus Center’s efforts are bearing such wonderful fruit! A small community has grown there over the years that now offers an elementary school for poor children, some of them orphans; a medical clinic that provides the only affordable or free care available for many; a farm that raises much of its own food; and retreats and formation events that have had an almost unbelievable impact on renewal in the Ugandan Church. Over the years, almost a thousand priests—many of whom are now bishops—have participated in programs at the center, most often in Life in the Spirit Seminars. Also, the center can hardly keep up with the demands from many dioceses and seminaries to provide Life in the Spirit Seminars and other formation events for their priests and seminarians. The leaders of the community and outreach are Joseph and Francesca Aonu Okior, who are among the wisest and most gifted lay leaders I have ever met.
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal’s significant presence in Uganda, they wanted to have the biggest-ever retreat for priests and bishops, along with a massive celebration at the Shrine of the Ugandan Martyrs. They needed significant funding from us to make this happen—and our supporters stepped up! Thank you! Throughout our time there, the retreat organizers continually thanked the Renewal Ministries’ supporters who made these powerful events possible. They have never met you, but they know you were there for them, and they sincerely thank you.
To say the retreat and conference were well-attended is an understatement! Over five-hundred priests and numerous bishops gathered for a week of solid teaching and ministry, as well as the enormous celebration at the Shrine of the Ugandan Martyrs. As many as fifty-thousand people participated on the last night (although some say up to two-hundred thousand), and thirty-thousand people participated on each of the previous days (although some say up to eighty thousand). Counting huge crowds like this is tough but suffice it to say: a lot of people were there!
The retreat for priests and some bishops was very impactful. Two bishops of dioceses in Uganda came to the retreat with all their priests. What an amazing and wise thing to do! They wanted to come together so that the retreat’s influence would extend throughout their whole dioceses. In fact, significant numbers of priests came from every diocese in Uganda and from many other countries as well. A South African archbishop came who was deeply touched. Priests from Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, and other countries came. Lay people from all over Africa—including the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Nigeria, Togo, Zambia, and Cameroon—also attended the big conference. Two very impressive young men, leaders of a community and mission in Croatia, attended too! They were involved in the translation and publication of the Croatian version of The Fulfillment of All Desire, and they use it for the formation of young people throughout Croatia.
Bishop Scott and I both gave five talks, and we were very much on the “same page”—the same pages of Sacred Scripture—even though we hadn’t consulted much beforehand. Bishop Scott spoke with great clarity and fervor, giving some of the best talks I’ve ever heard on the basic Gospel message and who Jesus really is! Our Lord is not a tame pussycat but the Lion of Judah! The priests received our messages with their whole hearts and minds, and many said that they were leaving the retreat with a much deeper conviction of the truth of our faith, the need for holiness in their own lives, and greater passion and urgency in their work for the salvation of souls. Who could ask for more?
The general conference was a sight to behold. Joy characterized the tens of thousands who were there. The participants were grateful for the work of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and eager to worship the Lord in Holy Mass each day with some of the most enthusiastic singing and dancing I’ve ever seen. A different bishop or archbishop presided over every Mass. The renewal in Uganda clearly has the strong support of the nation’s bishops, who realize what it has done to bring people to Christ and make them enthusiastic disciples.
During the priests’ conference, I had two strong senses from the Lord. One, that the “hour” of the Church in Africa has arrived. When the African bishops as a whole pushed back hard on the ambiguous and gay-friendly documents coming out of Rome, they reached a certain maturity. No longer suffering from an unhealthy subservience to the declining European churches and unreliable theologians, the Church in Africa now knows it needs to stand strong for the faith even when Europe isn’t. I felt like the Lord wanted to encourage them in this.
Secondly, I felt that some very significant breaches in the “gates of hell” have been achieved in Uganda, that many doors are now wide open, and that we should pour reinforcements into the breach. We should continue to help the Emmaus Center respond to the many calls to help form seminarians and priests, not just financially, but also by continuing to stand shoulder to shoulder with them by sending seasoned men and women of God to participate with them in their missions. Rectors and spiritual directors in the four or five national seminaries in Uganda asked us directly if we would help them. With your help, we will do as much as we can.
These were great days that revealed how much God has already done; deepened the faith of many priests, bishops, and lay people; and spread the faith among many. One night, two bishops from Uganda and a priest representative from Zambia asked to meet with Bishop Scott and myself to thank us personally and at length both for being there with them and for our financial help that made the priests’ retreat possible. They asked us to thank you, our supporters—knowing that you stand behind us and make all we do possible.
You truly are making possible significant renewal of an entire national Church. Thanks be to God. As they say in Uganda:
“God is good. All the time. All the time, God is good because that is his nature. Wow!”
Your brother in Christ,
Ralph
This article originally appeared in Renewal Ministries’ September 2024 newsletter, which you can view here.
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Hi Ralph, I am always blessed to see your videos, and read your books, flyers, and watch your YouTube and Facebook clips. Our prayer group recently hosted Deacon Larry Oney and Evangelist Terry Quinn in Nashville for the 38th Annual Mid-South Regional Catholic Charismatic Conference. The Holy Spirit came down in power, touching the hearts of those attending, healing over a half dozen persons, Baptizing 19 in the Holy Spirit, and rededicating 8 persons to Jesus who hadn’t been to Church in years. We also had a worldwide live-stream from the Conference, and I am including clips and the entire event. God bless you for all you do!
Yours In Christ,
Paul Rogalski
https://msrcc.org/live-stream-2024/
https://www.youtube.com/@MidSouthCatholicCharismatics