By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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This month is proving to be rather spiritually puzzling to some Ugandan Christians who are not so pious, for our minds wander as they digest communications about the Church.

May is particularly special for Catholics, being part of the Easter season as the faithful await Pentecost (coming of the Holy Spirit) and is dedicated to Blessed Virgin Mary. But in this era of digital leaks, May started with two pieces of leaked communication that are still hard to wrap our heads around.

The first was originally from an altar wine supplier to all dioceses in the country, announcing a shortage of wine that was to bite for some time, due to the Middle East crisis that affected import supply routes! As such, diocesan leaders were urged to institute wine rationing.

Now, wine is important in all Christian churches, because God’s men use it for blessing those who consume it.

For Catholics, the instituting only two decades ago of the Luminous Mysteries — the fourth set added to the ages-old three sets recited when praying the Holy Rosary, wine’s importance was reinforced by inclusion of Jesus’ first miracle – when He turned about 500 litres of water into wine to quench thirsty wedding guests at Cana.

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That was a generous amount of drink for a wedding of whatever size at the time when the population of the whole world was just 200 million, a mere fortieth of today’s eight billion.

Remember Jesus’ was blessed, quality wine served after guests had imbibed cheap stuff, so presumably caused no hangovers the day after. The Lord’s wine-making is the second of the Luminous Mysteries. Now, we’re hit by mild panic at the prospect of our priests lacking wine for celebrating the Holy Eucharist! We want our priests cheerful.

The second leakage was an amateur video shot in a parish church of one of Kampala’s better suburbs, showing a three-year-old driving a battery-powered toy car towards the altar for her Baptism. This was at the height of floods sweeping the continent, killing people, ravaging homes, farms, roads and railways.

Sadly, some Catholics may not have yet made a connection between the rampaging floods and climate change, even though the current Pope and his predecessor categorically condemned as sinful environmentally destructive actions that lead to global warming and climate change.

If we had made the connection between global warming and the floods now killing our people, we would, in addition to condemning the little girl and her parents, have thanked her for drawing attention to electric mobility that provides an option to the fuel vehicles that pump tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every day, endangering all life on the planet, including that of people who will never drive a car.

Critics could have queried her driving the battery car towards the front of the church (she stopped halfway), and then thanked her for pointing them to environmentally friendly transport.

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The condemnations got so amplified that a week or so later, the parish priest issued an apology to those who were offended. His brief apology did not give further guidance on which means of assisted locomotion can be allowed.

For example, if an electric wheelchair can enter the church, would a mother also be in order to wheel in her baby with a remote-controlled pram? Instead of seeking guidance, our social media went into overdrive sharing the short video calling on all to behold how “planned kids” arrive in church at a kind of private —not a scheduled Sunday service, where many people would be competing for limited space.

On the other hand, if bringing in a battery toy car once in a century is so bad, maybe the clean Christians should also actively oppose the bringing of stolen money into church for offertory.

Anyway, within a week after the electric car arrival in church, Ugandan social media go a hotter “crime” to share, when a teenage boy landed in a helicopter at a school near Kampala with his “gal” for a social event. Although the flight cost the boy “only” $1,200, you’d think the boy had sinned more than East Africa’s leaders, who have denied us open skies, making even essential flying an unaffordable luxury!

Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]