What's New

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    Despite Ugandans reluctance to mix the sacred and profane, the Catholic dioceses of Uganda recently opened a bank in Kampala with branches in small towns everywhere.
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    Mt. Sion Prayer Centre Bukalango is the hub of charismatic Catholic life in the Kampala area. The site is especially known for a weekly, six-hour service dedicated to releasing ancestral spirits.
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    Originally a site of prayer for peace during Uganda’s devastating civil wars, Kiwamirembe welcomes pilgrims for overnight vigils, daily Masses and Good Friday Passion walks.
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    When a Ugandan Catholic dies, local custom dictates that the extended family and neighbors help share the costs of a funeral and burial to relieve the family of the financial burden. Family and neighbors converge on the house of the deceased. People collect food from their houses and bring it to the house of the bereaved family. The body is washed and clothed by relatives at home, and spends at least one night in the home of the family. The church choir might come by to sing, and catechists visit. If possible, the priest might say Mass the next morning before burial, which is generally held
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    Shrines and pilgrimage play an important role in Ugandan Catholic life. The annual pilgrimage to the Ugandan Martyrs Shrine is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world.
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    Built on the foundation of traditional African and Catholic legacies, religious practice at home, and religious decoration of homes, is particularly important for Catholics in the area.
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    Pentecostals have attracted significant numbers of former Anglicans and Catholics. Catholic worship in Uganda, once particularly formal, but later having become inculturated, has struggled to keep up.
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    Many of Berlin's older churches, rebuilt after the Second World War, include elements of modern design. In West Berlin, Modernism came to dominate, even before Vatican II.
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    In Germany, as in many parts of Europe, immigration is disrupting and sometimes reshaping prior senses of cultural identity. In some areas, particularly in the former East Germany, pushback against immigrants has at times been harsh and even violent, though larger numbers of Germans have responded in much more welcoming ways.1 1A good summary of some of these events in East Germany and Berlin is found in the chapter “The New Racism” in Peter Schneider’s Berlin Now trans. Sophie Schlondorff (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: 2014) pp. 205-211. The German Chancellor spoke against these
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    Catholicism in Berlin is relatively disenchanted, rationalized away from a world of saints who intervene on our behalf, or who should be prayed to, and instead focused primarily on the saints as role models, if that at all.