4 - Genesis

Summary

From about the early 1980s onwards, a promotion of Marian devotion by certain members of the new indigenous clergy resulted in a significant upsurge in the number of visions of Mary that were being recorded across the rural areas. Although these visions were taking place all over Southwestern Uganda (and beyond), they were particularly concentrated in those areas which had previously been settled by the Kiga Diaspora. All of which is central to our story here, because it was from within this very context that the MRTC was to first emerge, also in the second half of the 1980s. In effect, the MRTC began life as a branch of – or more accurately, as a network within – the Legion of Mary, and for the first few years of its existence, its activities were largely indistinguishable from those of the organization as a whole. Thus, it too held weekly meetings in a local parish – often under the auspices of a local branch of the Legion – to discuss the visions of some Marian seer or other. It too would organize special ‘rosary meetings’, other prayer groups dedicated to Marian worship, and so on. Moreover, its membership was, by and large, drawn from exactly the same sorts of people who attended other meetings of the Legion as well (i.e. a predominance of Kiga women of the Diaspora).

However, over time, and especially as its popularity grew, both the MRTC's own leadership, and the local Catholic hierarchy, came to view the new Movement, and its practices and goals, as contrary to those of the mainstream church.