Collective cult suicide in Uganda (Uganda).

Kanungu--Over 900 people, including many children, were burned to death March 17 in a boarded-up church in the Ugandan village of Kanungu, as well as in other villages some 145 miles from the capital, Kampala.

The victims were members of the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments," a sect whose leaders prophesied that the world would end in 2000 A.D. Many sect members were former Catholics who had left the Church.

Two of its leaders were excommunicated priests.

The Ugandan Catholic bishops have issued a statement from Kampala that "sect members" were misled by obsessed leaders "into an obnoxious form of religiosity completely rejected by the Catholic Church." The cult leaders had "erred and broken the discipline of the Church." It is not certain which, if any, of the five principal cult leaders perished in the blaze.

The director of the Turin Center for Studies of New Religions (CESNUR) in Italy, Massimo Introvigne, insists on the local context. "Before we start talking about all the apocalyptic sects in general, or about Marian apparitions (Uganda's 'Children of the Apocalypse' cult is based on one), we have to study the state of affairs in Uganda. This nation has seen the actions of a regime whose atrocities are unmatched in the world (those of Idi Amin)--even cannibalism--as well as a terrifying civil war. This is a country that has already lived its own 'Apocalypse.' So, is it unusual that someone would prefer to seek an immediate 'Paradise' instead of living in a place where every passing army rapes and kills?"

"The sects are a tragedy that is also manipulated politically to weaken the Church, but, at the same time, they are a challenge to us Catholics," Fr. Gianfrancesco Sisto told the Vatican news agency Fides. Fr. Sisto, a 32-year-old Franciscan, has been living in Uganda for 3 years.

The Franciscan missionary said that there are politicians who want to weaken the Church. "Catholics are accused of being a foreign Church; the authorities are suspicious of the missionaries. They are trying to make the Church responsible for the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi, even though hundreds of priests and bishops have been victims. All this propaganda creates disorientation and confusion among the faithful. When the faith is not deeply rooted, it is easy for Christians to listen to the latest newcomer, with consequences like these."

Rev. Grace Kaiso, secretary general of the Uganda Joint Christian Council, believes that the combination of the spread of the AIDS epidemic, rapid urbanization, poverty, and the increase in popularity of non-traditional Christian religions contributed to the explosion of the tragedy of Kanungu. "People are leaving rural zones and losing their local ties, those who cared for them. AIDS means that people have less chance of being helped when their relatives and friends die. The fact that so many people died increased the belief that the end of the world is near. They see all these things and think, 'Why invest in the future?'"