19th century
Feast: June 3
He replaced the king’s chief page to protect the younger boys from sexual abuse — and was burned alive at twenty-six for refusing to stop teaching them the faith.
Charles Lwanga was a young catechist serving at the court of King Mwanga II of Buganda. Mwanga was erratic and violent, and he had a practice of sexually abusing the teenage pages in his court. Joseph Mkasa, the previous chief page and a Catholic, had confronted the king about the abuse and about the murder of an Anglican missionary bishop. Mwanga had Mkasa beheaded. Charles Lwanga stepped into the role, knowing exactly what it meant. He began protecting the younger pages — teaching them the faith, baptizing those who asked, and physically shielding them from the king’s advances. When Mwanga discovered that his pages were being catechized, he flew into a rage and demanded they renounce Christianity. The boys — some as young as thirteen — refused. Between May and June 1886, Mwanga had twenty-two Catholic pages and attendants executed, most of them burned alive at Namugongo. Charles Lwanga was the first to die, wrapped in a reed mat and set on fire. He reportedly said to his executioner, ‘You are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water on my body.’ The youngest martyr, Kizito, was fourteen. They went to their deaths singing hymns.