Father Lourdel, baptised Siméon, was originally from the diocese
of Arras in the north of France. He was born on the 20th December 1853 in the
village of Dury (Pas-de-Calais) into a well-to-do and very Catholic farming
family; one of his brothers would become a Carthusian. After his primary
schooling at the 'Séminaire des Saints Anges' at Arras, he continued his
secondary studies at the junior seminary of the same town. Expelled for lack of
discipline, he completed his studies at Saint Bertin College at Saint Omer. In
his youth, he read the life of Father Vénard (1829-1860), who died a martyr at
Tonkin (Indochina). It awakened in him the desire to become a missionary, a
desire that he would later share with his friends at Saint Bertin College,
Léonce Bridoux (1852-1890) and Anatole Toulotte (1852-1907). The three friends
would enter the Society of Missionaries of Africa after a meeting in 1873 with
Father Charmetant (1844-1921), a Missionary of Africa sent to France to look
for candidates for the plan to evangelise Africa, launched at Algiers by
Archbishop Lavigerie (1825-1892) in 1868.
After going through the various stages of his training with the
Missionaries of Africa, Lourdel, then a major seminarian, was ordained a priest
on Easter Monday the 2nd April 1877 at Maison Carrée, near Algiers. At the
beginning of his priestly life, he taught for a few months at the junior
seminary of Notre-Dame d'Afrique, and then in November 1877, he joined the
community of Metlili in the Sahara. The following year, Archbishop Lavigerie
appointed him a member of the first caravan heading to Equatorial Africa. He
formed part of the group consisting of Archbishop Livinhac (1846-1922),
destined to evangelise the peoples of the Lake Victoria region. He and Brother
Amans Delmas (1852-1895) were the first to arrive in Buganda on the 17th
February 1879, after a journey lasting 10 months. Their caravan had left
Marseilles on the 17th April 1878. From then until his death, Father Lourdel
evangelised the Baganda with a view to founding a Catholic kingdom among them,
according to the instructions of Archbishop Lavigerie. By 1890, in spite of the
1886 persecution, the Catholic community even then numbered some 1,200 baptised
and 10,000 catechumens.
In Buganda, Father Lourdel was called 'Mapeera', the local
pronunciation of the French 'mon Père'. According to the testimony of his
confreres, he impressed his circle of friends with his physical qualities: he
was tall, muscular and had rugged good looks. He was a man of action, extremely
strong and active, a leader with a rare will power and the solid faith of
country people. This description from his contemporaries does not compare much
with the angelic image of Father Lourdel on his most famous photograph, a
portrait noticeably retouched to satisfy the religious sensitivities of French
Catholics at the end of the 19th century.
Pray for us all Fr. Mapeera.
Joseph Odhiambo Obunwa