Is Archbishop Henry Orombi implicated in the false report issued by Revd Erich Kasirye?

The report about the Uganda gay man found beheaded in a farm latrine which we posted on Monday turns out to contain both truth and falsehood. A severed head was indeed found in a latrine and there is a newspaper report in the Daily Monitor and a video on You Tube showing the gruesome discovery unfolding.

The search for the missing priest, the Rev Henry Kayizzi Nsubuga, was reported at VirtueOnline and also seems to be true.

I apologise for all those who have been misled because I posted the report before further investigative work had been undertaken to check its veracity and to those who have been waiting all day for a response.

Integrity USA
Integrity USA have been told by Bishop Christopher Senyonjo that he did not make the comments attributed to him in the report.

The Rev Erich Kasirye is not the General Secretary of Integrity Uganda.

I doubt if the claim that a joint search team of Integrity Uganda and Namirembe Diocese to find the severed head of another gay man is true, nor are many other details in the report. The names are not congruent with the YouTube video.

Victor Mukasa
The original report by Erich Kasirye was emailed to the SOGI list which had been receiving reports for the past week from activists and media about the disappearance and murder of LGBTI people from Integrity Uganda.

Victor Mukasa of the Research and Policy Associate for East, Central and Horn of Africa, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Cape Town, has reported on research into the truth of the claims.

He has been in touch with Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo, officials from the Uganda LGBT Security Committee and Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). All are undertaking their investigations into the reports.

Bishop Christopher said he was not aware of any disappearances or murder of any Integrity Uganda members. He said that he had read and listened to news in Uganda about a missing priest, but not about any Integrity Uganda members.

The Bishop has informed Victor that he has not made the comments in the original report and is not aware of the murder of the young man named Pascali.

Integrity Uganda
John Clinton-Bradley of Integrity USA alerted me to the presence of the Revd Erich Kasiyre’s name in the report posted on Monday, indicating that the story might be false. Tracking information about Erich Kasiyre has taken me most of the day. Here’s what I have discovered so far.

Erich was indeed involved with Integrity Uganda, having been one of the founders in 2000 and serving frequently as its chief spokesperson.

When Michael Hopkins, then President of Integrity, visited Uganda in 2002 he met Fr Kasiyre who had been prohibited from exercising his ministry in the diocese along with Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, the retired bishop of West Buganda.

Erich came to the UK in 2003 at LGCM’s expense to participate, in theory, in LGCM’s Half Way to Lambeth Conference. I met him several times in London but he failed to arrive at the conference in Manchester and was reported to be attending medical appointments in London.

In February 2004 Integrity USA issued a statement “concerning troubling accounts of the activities of one of the members of the leadership team of Integrity Uganda, the Rev. Erich Kasirye.”

It became clear that Fr. Kasirye had been involved in a number of scams in order to raise money for himself personally using his connection with Integrity Uganda. In January 2004 he solicited funds from a number of organizations and individuals through an online LGBT Anglican Group claiming to have been imprisoned because he had been helping at the Integrity LGBT Anglican Centre in Uganda. Erich’s ‘wife’ and another person, ‘Lt. Josephine’, provided daily information regarding his arrest, soliciting funds to help him. Leonardo Ricardo was one of those people taken in by Erich and was persuaded to send $1,000.

Later reports suggest that Archbishop Henry Orombi rehabilitated Fr Erich Kasiyre, asking¨ Erich to serve and recruit and ¨save¨ Episcopal Church parishes from ¨unholy¨ practices in the U.S.A. for Bishop Samuel Ssekkadde, Diocese of Namirembe in 2005.

Diocesan Mission Coordinator
In May 2005 Fr Kasirye resurfaced in the new position of Diocesan Mission Coordinator for Bishop Samuel Ssekkadde in the Diocese of Namirembe. This was almost certainly the cover for another scam. Erich was sending an email headed: Looking for a diocese or Province that will give you cover?

"This is to inform you that my Diocese would like to adopt a parish in the States which is orthodox and lacks ecclesiastical protection.
Kindly let us know those churches which might need some pastoral and personal support. We are very much aware of the poisonous efforts of the revisionist forces which face orthodox churches in ECUSA-and we do not want them to be vulnerable. The Diocese of Namirembe recently celebrated its 150 years. Of course the question that springs to mind is why not ask why an orthodox US bishop to do this?¨ Fr. Eric Kasirye
Provincial youth and Student's Secretary
Rev. Eric Kasirye
P.O.Box 14123, Kampala

David Virtue
David Virtue was one of the recipients, reporting in 2005 that “ I got a note this week from the Rev. Erich Kasirye, Diocesan Mission Coordinator for Bishop Samuel Ssekkadde, in the Diocese of Namirembe. This was the first Diocese in East and Central Africa which now has over 5 million membership.” (Note that David is obsessed with numbers). He couldn’t have been taken in by a scam, could he?

It’s not clear to me whether Erich Kasirye has genuinely been restored to an official post in the Church of Uganda nor how he might have benefitted financially from the letter written as Diocesan Mission Coordinator nor the present letter about the murdered gay man.

Archbishop Henry Orombi
However, in David Virtue’s 25 May 2010 report of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo’s presence at the consecration of Mary Glasspool, David (who seems to be in direct communication with Archbishop Henry Orombi and was sent the letter which Orombi sent to Archbishop Rowan Williams prior to the Lambeth Conference in 2008) reports Henry Orombi's comments at length.

When asked why Bishop Christopher was promoting the Integrity organization on his speaking tour of the USA and Ireland, Orombi said it was purely for the money: "The good news is that his assistant the Rev. Eric Kasirye has left him and returned to the church. Praise God."

Archbishop Henry Orombi seems to be directly implicated with the Revd Erich Kasiyre and therefore with the false report of the beheading of a member of Integrity Uganda.

Colin Coward