In 1959, the Province of Saint Ann (USA), Blessed Sacrament religious (SSS) first came to Masaka, Uganda. They were invited by the local bishop and the Superior General, Godfrey Spiekman SSS, from Rome to establish a parish community. (Uganda is a country on the equator in Eastern Africa, hovering over the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Victoria.)
With the rule of the military dictatorship of Idi Amin during the 1970s, all foreign-born religious communities, including the SSS religious, were deported in 1973. The parish continued to thrive with the help of a few diocesan priests…
With the facilitation of the General Superior during the 1990s, Very Reverend Norman Pelletier SSS,…and at the request of the local bishop, the Blessed Sacrament Filipino Province returned to the parish to administer it. In 2002, with the growth of native Ugandan SSS religious, a formation house was purchased in Jinja, Uganda, 400 kilometers northeast of Masaka. Jinja is a city at the mouth of the Nile River and the beginning of Lake Victoria.
In the late 2010s, the Filipino religious began transferring all leadership and administration of the foundation to the native Ugandan religious, as it is now. The Uganda missions are in collaboration with the SSS Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Province within the SSS’s international structure. In 2020, the SSS Ugandan religious were offered another house and parish community two hours west of Masaka in Mbarara.
Pictured to the left are the three SSS religious who administer the Philosophy Program for Aspirants in Jinja, Uganda, featured in their chapel.
On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Province of Saint Ann, Father Simon Peter Zikusooka SSS invited Father John Thomas Lane SSS to come and see how the donations were being used and to bless the addition to the rectory.
Photo right: Aggregation Members of Blessed Sacrament Parish meet with Father Lane for a presentation
