‘Instil morals in children to fight homosexuality’

 

Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi has

fought homosexuality fearlessly

 

This week, The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi cerebrates five years since he was installed as the 7th Archbishop of the Church of Uganda. Under his patronage, the Church has made great strides in mission and development as well as growth in its range of activities, most importantly, his brave stand against homosexuality in the Global Church. Elvis Basudde talked with him about the effectiveness of his homosexuality campaign. Excerpts.

 

QUESTION: Your Grace, Why didn’t the Bishops from the Church of Uganda attend the Lambeth Conference?
ANSWER: It would have been an act of pretence. We cannot break bread, share in Bible study and fellowship with other members of the communion while pretending that the issues affecting the Anglican Communion were not paramount. I hail the Church of Uganda for sticking together.

 

There are incidents of homosexuality in Uganda and the habit seems to be rampant. Is this development local or foreign?
When I took up the seat as Archbishop in 2004, the Anglican Communion was faced with a move by the Western world towards the approval of same-sex union. In 2005, we went to Northern Ireland to discuss the issue. In October 2003, when the primates met in London, they had warned the Americans, who at this point, had already elected a man who was in a same-sex relationship and wanted him to become a bishop. They warned the American bishops that if that went ahead, the fabric of the communion would be torn.

On November, 2003, they consecrated the gay, a thing that plunged the Anglican Church into confusion. Uganda could not condone that and we broke relationship with the Americans till today. Since 2004, we have not got money from churches in America.

 

Has your homosexuality campaign been effective?
I must say it has been successful. This is because nobody has taken the Bible and thrown it out, saying it is rubbish. Homosexual practices are incompatible with nature. For any average Ugandan, you cannot conceive of homosexual practices, which one one blatantly within the church circles.

 

If your campaign is successful, how come some members of the church have been implicated in the undesirable practice? The deputy Vicar of Namirembe, Rev. David Ssekiziyivu recently said we should pray for the “wave” that has invaded the church.

Success in morals can never be 100%. When you talk about immorality in the church, you still get wedded people going out loosely, yet the teaching of the church is one-man-one-wife and one-wife one-man. Not everybody is going to listen to that teaching. But the question is when someone strays, do you condemn it? That is where the challenge comes. The bottom line is you challenge it, rebuke it and tell them that what they have done is wrong. The success I am talking about is that we still do not condone the practice.

 

On what scale is the habit being practised in Uganda?
The practice is here but we cannot get the statistics because homosexuality is illegal in this country. People know that if they come out openly, they will be implicated. We are fallen human beings and are prone to sinning on a large.

 

What has the church of Uganda specifically done to curb the habit?
What this country and the church did when HIV/AIDS came was to demystify it, expose it through education and through information. People used to call the disease witchcraft because they could not find a cure for it. But they began to learn how to guard themselves against it and the moment the information came out, people began to make decisions. But that does not mean that even when people know, they cannot make wrong decisions. But they make wrong decisions knowingly. As a church, we educate people using our pulpit. Education is by far the best way.

 

What preventive measures should Uganda take to mitigate the impact of the habit?
Train our young people early. Instill morals in children when they are still young. I am afraid our training ability beginning from families is not as firm as it used to be in the past. Our children are no longer exposed to real teaching to help them have principles to help them live a balanced life.

 

There are sections of Christian leaders who condone the practice, like Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo and Bishop Desmond Tutu. What reasons do they give?
Ssenyonjo does not condone homosexuality. He says he is a counsellor who offers himself for anybody including homosexuals. He may not say he condones it when you ask him now. He will say he admits homosexuals are there and he admits he counsels them. But I think where he stops short is, after counseling them, where does he leave them? Counseling is one thing but where do you leave them? I would say if there is one like that there is no malfunctioning in us that God cannot deal with.

 

And Bishop Desmond Tutu? He has publicly condoned homosexuality.
He is more American. In South Africa in their House of Bishops, they have gay bishops. You cannot have that in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda or Nigeria. The reason is they are a rainbow nation — they are mixed culturally which makes their struggle harder than ours. Part of the reason we succeed in Uganda is because the populace in Uganda stands behind their bishops.

 

The gay movement is the fastest-growing movement in the world. What are the forces behind it?
They have very sophisticated propaganda machinery and a lot of money. The Western world is permissive, meaning they have the freedom to do whatever they like. In the Western world, teenagers can have sex without any question. Transsexual acts where a man or woman goes to a doctor to change their sexual organs is very common in the West. But we cannot talk about that kind of thing here.

 

Do you foresee the possibility of Uganda’s policy makers legalising the practice? Recently, a cabinet memo was put in pigeon halls seeking removal of religious education in schools. What should be done to keep Uganda a Christian country?
In my opinion, the church and religious institutions should not leave the legislators alone. We need to help them understand that what they do now will have effect on us 50 or 100 years down the road. The legislators may only have the opportunity during one parliamentary life time, but they should begin to know that their decisions and policies will affect their children and grandchildren.

One of the roles of the Church is to be prophetic; to read the signs of the times and predict what may happen. Will the children rise up one morning and say: “Blessed be my grandfather, he was a parliamentarian and he gave me hope for the future.”

The same thing goes for the church. When we do something, we do it now. If it is a cheap decision we want to make to save our skin now but has implications for the future, we better not save our skins. Part of my crusade for young people is to raise emerging leaders. We could have failed them, our parents could have failed this nation, but I believe there is a generation coming with totally different principles in life.

 

There is a lot of sin in the Church. What has gone wrong and what can be done to right the wrong?
The problem is the church has taken in people who are not totally committed. These are people who were baptised, confirmed, wedded and came to the holy table. But it is about what they are or do that is important.

What has gone wrong is that there is some kind of inauguration of a quarter dose of God’s word in people, which has not knocked off the sin tendency in their lives. There are people who have got enough gospel to put resistance to the true faith because they know something, though they may not know it all. They will defend it yet it may not help them. An under-dose can create difficulties.

Another scenario is some people’s surroundings are so tempting that they cannot survive. Today, a young girl on the streets of Kampala may not survive if she does not have money. She might be tempted to steal or engage in sexual immorality. The environment today is tough and many are falling by the way.

Uganda today is a very free country, even religiously. Not everything that looks like a church congregation is a church. There are so many cult movements. Freedom is difficult for many human beings to handle.

With liberalisation, people can now shop where they want to go. There are guys in Kampala who are trotting from one church to another, without being responsible to anybody for their behaviour