Rev. Fr Phillip Odii, the communications coordinator of the Uganda Episcopal Conference, says that the prince of the Catholic church is well and sound.
“All that you have heard and seen regarding Cardinal Wamala is fake news. We don’t know who is circulating this false information or their intention but it’s false information,” said Oddii.
During the installation of the new Archbishop of Kampala, the congregation was informed that the cardinal was unable to physically attend the function as he was weak. Wamala’s last public appearance was on November 21, 2021, at St Noa Mawaggali Cathedral in the Kiyinda-Mityana diocese where he marked his 40th episcopal anniversary. Â Â
On the same day, the Kiyinda-Mityana was also celebrating a ruby anniversary following its creation in 1981 as one of the Catholic Dioceses in Uganda under the Kampala Ecclesiastical Province with Wamala as its first bishop. Besides the aforementioned public appearance, there have been individuals who have visited him at his residence in Nsambya.Â
But, even these were limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wamala is currently one of the oldest cardinals across the world, the oldest being Cardinal Jozef Tomko, 97, from Slovakia.  St. John Paul II proclaimed Wamala cardinal in the consistory of 26 November 1994 making him the second prelate from Uganda to become cardinal after his predecessor, Emmanuel Nsubuga.Â
He participated in the conclave of April 2005, which elected Pope Benedict XVI. When he clocked 80, he lost his electoral powers and didn’t attend the conclave that elected Pope Francis. Wamala was born on December 15, 1926, at Kamaggwa, in the parish of Lwaggulwe in the Diocese of Masaka.Â
inarticle} inarticle}
