The reported ban on non-Anglican students from worshiping within their religious denominations at the Uganda Christian University (UCU) is very unfortunate. (See: UCU bans non-Anglican worship at own campus. Saturday Monitor, June 18th). According to the story, Rev Can John Senyonyi, the university Vice Chancellor, said all non-Anglicans are welcome to the university, (but) they will have to worship from their respective places outside the university! The good Vice Chancellor claims that “while they recognise the worship of other people, it is not welcome to this campus” and called upon the non-Anglicans to respect this setting.
I find this development rather disturbing and a manifestation of a high level of religious intolerance on the part of the university leadership. It is difficult to comprehend this stand more so where the VC talks of recognising other religious worship. This development is a great blow to the establishment of the Inter-religious Council, which has been preaching religious ecumenism. We have many religious founded schools and institutions of higher learning where pupils/students that believe and practice other religious faiths are not only free to worship at those schools, but management of those schools ensure that they are facilitated to do so. This is partly meant to ensure that all students are religiously well nurtured.
The best for institutions whose stand is like the one of UCU is to openly declare that they only register and enroll students from a specific religious belief.
Lastly, this calls for the intervention of the Ministry of Education and Sports to impress it upon such institutions that Uganda is a secular country where all persons should be allowed to worship even within the confines of such institutional environments.
Frank Mutagubya,
franmutam@yahoo.com
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