The Pope has appointed the Most Rev Paul Ssemogerere as the new Archbishop of Kampala Diocese.
Ssemogerere’s appointment was announced on Thursday at Rubaga Cathedral by the Pope’s ambassador to Uganda, Luigi Bianco.
The new Archbishop has been the Bishop of Kasana-Luwero Diocese and he has been acting as the Apostolic Administrator of Kampala Archdiocese following the death of Archbishop Dr. Cyprian Kizito Lwanga early this year.
Who is Bishop Ssemogerere?
Paul Ssemogerere was born on 30 June 1956 at Kisubi, in present-day Wakiso District in the Buganda Region of Uganda. This location is in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala.
He attended Kigero Primary School before transferring to Kisubi Boys Primary School. He then studied at St. Maria Goretti Senior Secondary School Katende, where he completed his O-Level studies. In 1976, Ssemogerere and seven other young men became pioneer students at St Mbaaga Seminary at Ggaba. This was the first class of this seminary, which specializes in admitting men to train as priests when they are older than usual, and without attending minor seminary.
In 1978, the late Cardinal Emmanuel Kiwanuka Nsubuga sent Ssemogerere to the Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States, where he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree in 1982.
On 21 November 1981, he was ordained a deacon by Archbishop Rembert George Weakland, the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
Ssemogerere was ordained a priest on 3 June 1983 at Kampala, by Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga,then Archbishop of Kampala. He served as a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala, until 4 June 2008.
He was appointed bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kasana-Luweero, on 4 June 2008. He was consecrated as bishop on 23 August 2008 at Kasana-Luweero by the late Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, assisted by Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, Cardinal-Priest of Sant’Ugo, and Cardinal Emeritus of Kampala and Archbishop Paul Tschang In-Nam, Titular Archbishop of Amantia and Papal Nuncio to Uganda at that time.
On Thursday 8 April 2021, he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Kampala archdiocese by Pope Francis after the sudden death of Dr. Cyprian Kizito Lwanga who was the Archbishop of Kampala.
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