Episode 48: Killer Catholic Cult: Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

Today we are heading to southwestern Uganda where a religious movement founded on visions of the Virgin Mary and predictions for the end of the world that would eventually lead to a vicious church fire, a collection of poisonings, and a death toll of over 924. Today on The Odder we are talking about The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. Cling to your faith, whatever that may be, and Let’s Go!

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Music Credit
"Slow Heat" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Monkoto" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Artifact" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Main Theme:
"Dream Catcher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

1. Hello and welcome to The Odder Podcast. I’m your host Madison Paige and today we are heading to southwestern Uganda where a religious movement founded on visions of the Virgin Mary and predictions for the end of the world that would eventually lead to a vicious church fire, a collection of poisonings, and a death toll of over 924. Today on The Odder we are talking about The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. Cling to your faith, whatever that may be, and Let’s Go! 
2. Hey there Odders, how is everyone doing today? I hope we all enjoyed the last episode on the Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident. Hopefully everyone’s houses remained maneater free. If you really enjoyed it or if you didn’t, please leave a rating and review, they really do help! For the returning listeners, welcome back, for the new listeners, welcome welcome to The Odder podcast where we are a trail mix of all things unknown, unsolved, and just plain odd. If you have an idea for an episode you think would be fun, good news! I do listener requests so if you want your own personalized episode, you can send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you and know what you want to hear from me! I don’t have any announcements today but I am glad to have everyone back. Well, here we are closing out March on a Cult! We love cults! We are hitting up a really interesting one today as we investigate a cult with a death toll so high it was actually six more than the People Temple in 1978, which we will also have an episode on at some point. I will smack a small warning on this episode as there is mass death. Know your comfort level, and honestly, that’s something for all the cults we talk about really because there is not a one that was in any way normal or well functioning. But without further ado, let's head to southwestern Uganda where a horrific war, brutal dictatorship, and the Aids epidemic would drive people to seek solace and shelter in whatever place they could, including a collection of ex catholic priests and believers who claimed to be receiving visions directly from the Virgin Mary. 
3. The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, which going forward we will be referring to as MRTCG, had origins as early as 1960 when Paolo Kashaku, the father of later leader Credonia Mwerinde, claimed to have a vision of his deceased daughter Evangelista. In this vision, she told him that he would one day have visions of heaven. This came true in 1988 when Kashaku claimed to have visions of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph. His daughter Credonia would also state she had similar visions and at the time was already involved in a Virgin Cult. This has been disputed though as some sources claim that Credonia was actually a barmaid with a sordid reputation at the time these visions began. Credonia would even later claim to be a former prostitute although this was generally believed to be false and an attempt by her to draw parallels with the story of Mary Magdalene. The Virgin Mary was said to order Kashaku to instruct Credonia to begin spreading the messages that they had been receiving from these visions through Uganda in 1989 and it was during this that she met Joseph Kibweteere. Joseph was a respected member of the Catholic community in Uganda and had been a political and locally prominent member of the Catholic based Democratic Party in the 1970s. He claimed to have been receiving visions of his own since 1984. This would inspire the two to combine forces and found MRTCG with the mission to spread the messages they received in these visions from the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and other Catholic Idols. 
4. So what were these important visions? Credonia, Joseph, and Kashaki claimed to see different versions of the apparitions and messages they brought tended to address the parts of Ugandan life that were under attack at the moment such as political corruption and the Aids pandemic. 
5. At the time that MRTCG was formed, Uganda was under heavy political and social strife. General Idi Amin had seized control of the country in 1971 and ruled as a bloody dictator who carried out mass killing in order to maintain his control. It is estimated that during his tenure, 80,000 to 500,000 Ugandans died. In 1980, after he was overthrown in the Uganda-Tanzania war, his loyalists began what was known as the Bush War which lasted until 1986 and consisted of a political tug of war between the Ugandan government and the National Resistance Movement. Another 100,000 - 500,000 Ugandans would be killed in the conflict between the parties as each side raged war for their grip on power. On top of political upheaval, Uganda was also fighting the AIDs pandemic which saw infection rates at 30 percent in the 1980s. The Roman Catholic Church had a firm hold in Uganda at this point but when the people ran to them for help and support, they found priests and churches embroiled in scandals and lost faith in what was once their safe place in the community. In the absence created by the backsliding catholic church, groups made of people claiming to be messiahs or the chosen combined with ex nuns, priests, or catholic supporters sprang up as an answer bidding people to join them and follow their way. 
6. A former member who joined MRTCG at one point explained best this motivation to join these homespun catholic offshoot groups in his statement “We joined the movement as a protest against the Catholic Church. We had good intentions. The church was backsliding, the priests were covered in scandals and the AIDS scourge was taking its toll on the faithful. The world seemed poised to end.”
7. MRTCG grew rapidly in these conditions under the guidance of both Joseph and Credonia following the death of Kashaku in 1991. They designated the village of Kanungu as their homebase or what they called the “Rescue place for the Virgin Mary” and moved there in 1992. They settled the sect on a pineapple and banana plantation and by the late 1990’s had grown into a thriving community.  They gathered ex catholic priests and nuns and utilized them as theologians who would take the messages they saw in these visions and translate them for the people that followed them. The most well known of these was Father Dominic Kataribaabo, a Ugandan Dominican priest with a PHD from the United States. They were funded first by Joseph who sold three of his properties, his car and milling machines and then later by the devotees who pooled their assets before selling them all and donating the profits to the community. 
8. Like most cults, to join, you had to give them everything you had. 
9. On top of living and working communially, members also built houses in western Uganda for recruitment, indoctrination, worship and a primary school. A boarding school would be licensed until 1998 when it was revoked by the government for teaching contrary practices to the Ugandan constitution, breaches in public health regulations, and claims of child abuse and possible kidnapping. MRTCG practiced what is considered an archconservative brand of catholicism that even the Roman Catholic Church condemned. The group would eventually break their ties with the Ugandan Catholic Bishops after the reliability of their visions, use of religious garb, and their application of communion were called into question. However, the group strongly resisted being called a new religious movement and even though they had broken ties with the higher catholic powers, continued to insist they were simply a conservative catholic group. 
10. And they really meant that. MRTCG strived to obey the Ten Commandments at all costs. They believed that it was only through strict adherence to these rules that followers could avoid damnation in the coming apocalypse. This included discouraging their followers from speaking for fear of breaking the Ninth Commandment “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”. This led to some days where communication was only held in sign language. Fasting was a regular occurrence, and on Fridays and Mondays, followers could expect to only eat one meal. The group forbade sex but also soap. 
11. New members were required to study and memorize the group's book A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Time. The group believed that the world was set to end on December 31st, 1999 which was later changed to January 1st, 2000. In this book the end was explained in the following passage
    1. “All of you living on the Planet, listen to what I'm going to say: When the year 2000 is completed, the year that will follow will not be year 2001. The year that will follow shall be called Year One in a generation that will follow the present generation; the generation that will follow will have few or many people depending on who will repent.…The Lord told me that hurricanes of fire would rain forth from heaven and spread over all those who would not have repented.”
12. While a small sect had left in 1994 with a former ex-priest, the number of members has continued to grow and was listed at nearly 5,000. In 1999, with the predicted end date looming, New Vision, a local newspaper, interviewed a teenage member who stated quote “ "The world ends next year. There is no time to waste. Some of our leaders talk directly to God. Any minute from now, when the end comes, every believer who will be at an as yet undisclosed spot will be saved."
13. Members began to frantically prepare, confessing their sins, selling off their clothing and cattle for far less than they were worth, and stopping all work in the fields. They gave themselves over to near constant worship and ex members who had previously abandoned the community returned in hopes of claiming a spot in heaven after the coming apocalypse. They gathered together on the eve of the new year but when the dawn came on January 1st, 2000, nothing had happened. The day progressed and still the apocalypse was a no show. The leaders had promised that the Virgin Mary would be coming down to collect the devout members in person and she had made no appearance.
14. This was the beginning of the end for the Movement. 
15. Members demanded answers from Joseph and Credonia and payments to the church dramatically decreased. Those that had sold their possessions and turned over all their belongings to the cult began demanding them back. The leaders of the cult scrambled to save face and came up with a new date of March 17, 2000. They assured their followers that the new year had been a simple mistake and this new date would be a doomsday “with ceremony and finality” according to The New York Times. 
16. On the date of the new apocalypse, the movement held a massive party at the church at Kanungu. They roasted three bulls and drank 70 crates of soft drinks, most of which was Coca Cola. Not long after the party started however, nearby villagers heard a massive explosion and raced to the building.
17. They came upon the church engulfed in an intense fire. The windows and doors had been boarded up and all 530 members in attendance were trapped inside. Ugandan authorities were alerted and locals and officials did what they could to put out the blaze. There were no survivors. 
18.  After the fire, a full investigation was opened into the movement and their properties. Based on the evidence of boarded up windows and doors, the idea of the fire being accidental was quickly pushed off the table. Father Dominic Kataribabo was seen buying 50 liters of Sulfuric acid several days before the party which may have been used to start the fire. It was also found that shortly before March 17th, Joseph wrote to his wife Theresa, who was shockingly not a member of the movement, urging her to carry on MRTCG after his death. Among the 530 dead were assumed to be the bodies of the five principle cult leaders including Joseph Kibweteere, Credonia Mwerinde, and Father Dominic Kataribabo. 
19. Authorities began looking for clues at the associated properties belonging to the movement and found something even more horrifying. Hundreds of bodies scattered across various sites in southern Uganda. Six were sealed up in a latrine on the Kanungu compound, 153 at a separate compound in Buhunage, 155 bodies at Dominic Kataribabo’s estate in Rugazi and another 81 at a farm belonging to Joseph Nymurinda, one of the sect leaders. The bodies showed signs of being poisoned and stabbed and were believed to have been murdered about three weeks before the church inferno. 
20. This was quite a shock as MRTCG was considered to be one of the less violent apocalypse movements in Uganda. However, after searching through all residences and sites, the total death toll was a staggering 924 people. The remains of those in the fire who did not perish in the flames were believed to have been poisoned although sources also stated some may have been strangled due to the presence of banana fibers around their necks. 
21. While originally it was believed to be a cult suicide, the investigation concluded it to actually have been a mass murder conducted by the sect leaders. 
22. After the failure of their original predictions, unrest began to spread amongst the ranks of followers. Doubt in leadership and demands for the return of money may have driven the sect leaders to contemplate a way out of the trouble. They devised a plan of action, created a new date for the apocalypse, and invited the remaining members to a blow out party at their church. The leaders then announced a secondary party on the eighteenth in order to throw off any authorities who may become suspicious. 
23. This is when the sect leaders began to divide their followers into one of three categories. 
24. The first were the devout. These few were the most loyal, most dedicated. They were prepared to follow the sect leaders no matter what. It is likely they were told about the suicide plan. Likely rationalized as a way to leave a doomed world, this was a small number of followers but they were utilized by the leaders to carry out their will. A survivor would later recall running into a particularly devout member after they had left the church on the day of the fire. He had been heading towards it carrying nails and a hammer. It is believed this devout member is the one utilized by the sect leaders to seal the others inside. 
25. The second were the traitors. These were likely the most outspokenly angry, the most doubtful, and those that demanded their money and possessions back. These were the bodies found at the various compounds and properties and were killed days before the fire. The leaders likely utilized the devout to carry out these murders and hide the bodies. Amongest the traitors were also likely those considered the weak, these were people who might have been considered devout enough to trust with knowledge of the suicide plan but who had either backed out or not shown enough commitment and so were silenced before they could stop the sect leaders or report it to the authorities. 
26. The final category were the victims. These were the majority of the members. They knew nothing about a suicide plan but were trusting enough of the leaders to give the secondary apocalypse date a shot. They expected to go to heaven but they did not expect it to be via an inferno, poison, or strangulation. Witnesses stated that leaders of the movement never preached about mass suicide as part of their final plan. A nun visited a nearby village to announce the party and invite everyone but insisted it was the coming of the Virgin Mary and made no implication about anything else. While some members may have known about the suicide plan, others were simply informed of a imminent supernatural event. 
27. Originally Joseph Kataribaabo was identified among the dead. This was changed later however when the Ugandan government issued a warrant for his arrest along with Father Dominic and Credonia. It became a quick idea in the media that the sect leaders were actually con artists who had killed everyone and escaped the inferno with their money. Police to this day believe that Joseph and Credonia are still alive and there remains an international warrant out for their arrest. They reported in 2014 that they had received information that Joseph may be hiding in Malawi. 
28. No dental records of any of the leaders exist and so it is impossible to confirm or deny if their remains are among those pulled from the fires. Most scholars believed that the sect leaders did in fact die in the fire and the leader's behavior prior to the events is believed to support this. 
29. The tragedy of the lives lost to The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God has been used to highlight the dangers of new religious movements that spring up in high conflict environments like those present in Uganda at the time. The reason the cult was able to grow like it did is often attributed to the charismatic personality of the leaders, the use of literal interpretation of scripture, and the influence of the crisis within society and the Roman Catholic Church at the time. In areas ravaged by war, famine, disease, and desperation, it is not uncommon for people to turn to anything that can offer a possible solution. Even if that solution involved the presumed apocalypse. The Ugandan Government responded to the events with condemnation calling the event a "mass murder by these priests for monetary gain". 
30. No faction of the MRTCG is still in existence. Other religious movements have moved in to take its place. To this day, the media and Ugandan government continue to look for the sect leaders. 
31. Well, that’s all for this episode. So what do you think? Do you believe the leaders are still alive? Do you believe they really had visions? Would you join a cult? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and leave a review. The Odder Pod is also on TikTok. Come follow us there! Have a suggestion for a show? Send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com with your request and whether you’d like me to mention your name, your alias, or nothing at all. Remember this is The Odder Side so give me something cool, creepy, or confusing to deep dive for you. If you liked the show, leave us a review! They really help! If the apocalypse doesn't show the first time, it’s probably not coming the second. The Odder Podcast posts every other Thursday. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time on The Odder side.