Catholic dioceses in Uganda have been notified of a limited stock of wine available for Masses due to delays in shipping. Source: CNA.
In an April 30 letter to the financial administrators of Uganda’s dioceses, a company involved in procuring and shipping wine for the Uganda Episcopal Conference provided details of the altar wine shortage.
“This is to inform you that due to the Middle East wars, the ship’s usual passage through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were suspended and cancelled,” wrote Fr Asiku Alfred Tulu, the director of JW Interservices Ltd.
“The ships have been diverted to take longer and safer routes through the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, which has caused a major crisis and delays of their arrival to Mombasa Port [Kenya],” Fr Tulu explained.
The diversion of the ships to longer and safer routes, he said, “has affected the arrival of Mass wine, which we had expected to be here at the beginning of April”. The wine is now expected to arrive by mid-May and cleared through customs by the end of the month.
Priests in Ugandan have been urged to “regulate the use of wine as much as possible”.
According to canon law, Mass must be celebrated with the use of wheat bread and grape wine to which a small quantity of water is to be added.
Fr Ronnie Mubiru from the Kampala Archdiocese told the Ugandan Monitor he had received the notification regarding the possible altar wine shortage in the country.
In the interview, published on Monday, Fr Mubiru said that while the parish has some stock that can last several weeks, “if the wine we have in stock gets finished, we shall talk to the diocese; they know better how that issue will be resolved.”
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Uganda’s Catholic dioceses notified of limited stock of altar wine for Mass (By Jude Atemanke, CNA)
