This year marks Celebrate Love’s fifteenth anniversary in Australia and, with more than 1,000 couples having attended seminars in Australia, England and New Zealand, Celebrate Love has set its sights on Uganda. Celebrate Love is a two-day weekend seminar designed to strengthen Catholic marriage. The program encourages married couples to avoid “settling down” and coasting along, and to actively improve the quality of their relationship. Grounded in Pope John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body’, Celebrate Love recognises the importance of sexual love in creating intimacy in marriage.
National Directors Byron and Francine Pirola believe the seminar offers a message that Catholic couples want to hear: that you can live marriage as a passionate, life- long love affair – in Australia or Uganda. Gonzaga and Paskazia Lubega are the couple planning to bring Celebrate Love to Uganda. It may seem like an unusual choice, but Uganda looks set to be a fertile breeding ground for Celebrate Love. The East African nation has a population of more than 25 million people, 42% of whom are Catholic. The Lubegas have been married for 11 years, and have three biological and four adopted children. Both have a background in counselling and family planning, and currently minister full-time to couples in their region. As well as deepening the love between couples, the Lubegas hope
Celebrate Love will have a flow-on affect and impact some of Uganda’s social problems. “We hope that it will raise the dignity of women as equal before God, and safeguard against high-risk behaviours such as alcohol, drugs, violence and witchcraft,” the couple explains. Furthermore, the couple believes the program will help to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic devastating the nation. Although Uganada is a relative success story when compared with neighbouring countries’ reactions to the disease, the Lubegas explain that they “have seen many couples who are ignorant of what to do, and the disease is spreading due to infidelity between couples”. The Lubegas will also implement Celebrate Love’s sister program, Embrace, which prepares engaged couples for a life of passionate marriage. Gonzaga and Paskazia’s hopes reflect Celebrate Love’s belief that the family is the cornerstone of society. They travelled to Australia in September to participate in a Celebrate Love seminar and undertake training. Their visit is jointly sponsored by PMRC Australia (the parent organisation of Celebrate Love and Embrace) and the Emmanuel Community in Brisbane. The first Celebrate Love Seminar was subsequently held in Masaka, Uganda in November for twenty-five couples English speaking couples and six priests.
Fundraising to support the outreach to Uganda is now underway and donations are eagerly sought. The Lubegas are scheduled to visit Australia again to participate in The Renaissance of Marriage conference to be held in Sydney in February 2008. While here, they will speak to parishes and community groups about the Church in Uganda. Please contact PMRC Australia to make a donation or obtain further information.
