By Lydia Nsubuga

The Catholic Bishop for Lugazi Diocese, Dr. Mathias Sekamanya has noted that Catholics who constitute 46 percent of Uganda’s population should be at the forefront in invoking divine teachings to fight vices that have held development at stake.

“Today the country is famous for acts of immorality like child sacrifice, corruption,  and witchcraft, the fact notwithstanding that the Catholic church is  leading numerically in the country’s population”, Bishop Sekamanya said.

Bishop Sekamanya made these remarks while addressing a congregation at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mukono town, at the launch of celebrations to mark 50 years of reform in the Catholic Church, sanctioned by the Pope.

The jubilee celebrations running from December last year to the year 2014 were declared by the Vatican to mark sweeping reform in the church including allowing mass communication to take centre stage in the church, allowing priests to enroll for courses other than ministry, and giving more powers to the laity.

Bishop Sekamanya disclosed that a massive campaign to return believers to church teachings is to be launched with a view to fight immoral tendencies which he said are eating away  the Ugandan society.

Earlier, Mukono municipality member of parliament Betty Namboze lamented that Mukono has remained on top of districts with immoral and criminal acts, with security agents not doing enough to reverse the situation.

She said that today, security laxity coupled with free access to the internet even by tender age children,  has only given rise to violence, promiscuity, among others.

Namboze appealed to parents to tighten control of their children’s habits including limiting them to internet access.