Museveni commits over Shs1b for Fr Ambrosoli’s beatification

President Museveni has assured the catholic church of government's support towards the beatification ceremony of Fr Giuseppe Ambrosoli, a Roman Catholic priest under the Comboni missionaries society, who died 35 years ago.
The President made the assurance during a meeting with a delegation from Archdiocese of Gulu led by Archbishop John Baptist Odama at State House, Entebbe.
 The delegation had gone to brief Mr Museveni about the upcoming ceremony that will take place for the first time in Uganda.

During the Wednesday meeting, Archbishop Odama officially extended an invitation to the president for the event scheduled for November 20 at Kalongo Parish Archdiocese of Gulu in Agago District.
According to him, the Archdiocese of Gulu has earmarked up to Shs923 million as a budget to organize the beatification ceremony and about Shs 150 million to support Kalongo (Dr Ambrosoli Memorial) hospital, a facility that gained a reputation for excellence for almost 31 years, until 1987 when he died. 
“We shall manage. We shall have to do it because the people there may not manage all these Ugandans who come there and the foreigners from abroad. This is good news because these good works of people are now coming because of the peace we have in Uganda. So, I will be very happy to come to Kalongo,” Mr Museveni said. 

Mr Museveni also directed the Ministry of Works and Transport to work on the roads leading to the celebration venue and also committed over Shs 1 billion towards the event.
“We are ready to do the two roads; the one from Corner Kilak to Patongo and Agago and the Kitgum-Kalongo-Patongo road. We shall definitely struggle with these,” Mr Museveni said.
“These missionaries were really committed people, although there was colonialism which we fought with, within it, there were people of conviction like Fr Lordel Mapeera who died at 37 years. These were people coming from comfort to danger but you would see something was driving them. As a freedom fighter I appreciate them,” Mr Museveni said.
 
In the past, beatification was done only in Rome (Vatican), however, the church later revised the protocol to have the exercise performed where the person is considered to be blessed, served and according to Archbishop Odama, Pope Francis issued a concession to the Archdiocese to hold the event.
This will be celebrated under the theme, “In God Servant to The Suffering People’’ and will be the first time for Uganda to witness beatification at the origin of the blessed person.
 Pope Francis who on November 28, 2019, granted the publication of the decree on the miracle obtained through the intercession of Fr Ambrosoli, is expected to send a representative from Vatican. 

“The Pope himself was supposed to come for it but he decided that this stage of beatification could be done in the area where the one to be beatified worked,” Archbishop Odama said. 
The Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo who was part of the delegation, informed the President that the upcoming event is a great opportunity for Uganda since it's happening for the first time in his tenure as head of state and was happy that the government had accepted to take charge. 
“Although our colonial masters were British, in terms of education, health and infrastructure in Northern Uganda, it was the Comboni missionaries and the person we’re talking about (Fr Dr Giuseppe Ambrosoli) who combined both priesthood and medical work,” Mr Owiny-Dollo said.
The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Mr Norbert Mao lauded Mr Museveni for mobilizing the government to fully embrace the event and for accepting the invitation to attend in person.

“The event in Kalongo will be all over the world and it is an opportunity for you to send a strong message to the young people to emulate the sacrifices you referred to earlier of people leaving behind comfort to work for the future like you who chose the hard path just like Fr Ambrosoli,”Mr Mao said. 
According to the Catholic Church, beatification implies a procedure of determining and proclaiming that a deceased person is one of “the blessed,” or has gained the second degree of holiness, usually a stage in the process of canonization into sainthood. 
Upon beatification, Fr Ambrosoli will become the third blessed person in Northern Uganda after Jildo Irwa and Daudi Okello.
 
Fr Ambrosoli was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Comboni Missionaries. He was born in 1923 in Italy and came to Uganda in February 1956.
He is best known as a doctor, surgeon, philanthropist, and educator in the missions in Uganda.
The Priest also founded Alito and Morulem medical centers in 1972 for victims of leprosy. At the height of the Holy Spirit movement war in the mid-1980s, he relocated to Lira District where he died but his body was returned to Kalongo where he wanted to be buried.