Deepl Translation

Mechernich/Kommern – Sometimes it is only when someone leaves that you realise just how much they were a natural part of the community. This became clear on two separate occasions on Sunday, when the St Barbara Pastoral Area bid farewell to Father Patrick Mwanguhya at the Sunday service in the Old Church in Mechernich, and the 2025 Rome pilgrims did the same at the ‘Stollen’ restaurant in Kommern.

There, the 40-year-old Catholic priest, originally from Uganda, will take up a new post on 1 September in a smaller parish near Straubing (Diocese of Regensburg). Father Patrick had spent five years with the Ordo Communionis in Christo – whose mother house is situated on Bruchgasse in Mechernich – learning German and carrying out his priestly ministry. In 2025, he provided pastoral care for a joint pilgrimage to Rome organised by the Pastoral Area and Communio to mark the Holy Year.

Since October 2021, the priest, who hails from Fort Portal, had been devoting his ministry to the residents of the care homes and hospice run by the Sozialwerk der Communio in Christo. But beyond that, Patrick had also become a familiar face in church life in Bleiberg.

Erik Pühringer, the lead priest of the St Barbara Pastoral Area, expressed this during Sunday Mass in the Old Church. He thanked Patrick in particular for his humorous, down-to-earth and people-friendly manner, and for his willingness to lend a hand wherever priestly assistance was needed.

Father Patrick celebrated Masses within the Pastoral Area, accompanied pilgrimages and took part in church events. For instance, at the traditional St George’s Ride in Kallmuth, he was among the clergy on the Sacramental Cart, and he served as celebrant during the pilgrimage on Good Friday. Patrick was also among the clergy taking part in the joint Corpus Christi celebration in 2025 organised by Communio at the parish church of St John the Baptist. He represented Communio in Christo at Father Felix Dörpinghaus’s diamond jubilee.

At the altar in St Peter’s Basilica

The fact that a second farewell gathering took place on Sunday evening was linked to a journey that had evidently forged special bonds. During the Holy Year 2025, Father Patrick served as spiritual director for the joint pilgrimage organised by the Pastoral Area and Communio in Christo to Rome.

Forty-two pilgrims from Mechernich and the surrounding area travelled to the Eternal City from 20 to 27 March 2025. Patrick Mwanguhya, along with pilgrimage organiser Hans-Diethard Eichinger-Hess and his wife Marion, accompanied the group.

The daily services were among the highlights of the trip. Together with numerous German-speaking priests, the Ugandan priest celebrated Sunday Mass at Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German national church in Rome. A day later, he even stood at the altar with the pilgrims from Mechernich in a chapel within St Peter’s Basilica. The group was also able to visit the Tomb of St Peter beneath the basilica.

These shared experiences had transformed a tour group into a community of pilgrims. Eichinger-Hess later reported that he had “rarely encountered such a harmonious group”. Services in St Peter’s Basilica, in the Catacombs and at Santa Maria dell’Anima, as well as passing through the Holy Doors, were among the experiences that left a lasting impression on many participants.

“Would gladly have taken him along again”

The atmosphere was similarly warm and friendly at Patrick’s second farewell gathering on Sunday evening at the “Stollen” restaurant in Mechernich-Kommern. Former fellow pilgrims had gathered to bid farewell to their spiritual guide from 2025.

Pilgrimage leader Hans Diethard Eichinger-Heß recalled the priest’s unpretentious and friendly manner during their time together in Rome. And he summed up the group’s regret in a simple sentence: “We would have loved to have taken you with us again.”

For the next joint pilgrimage organised by the St Barbara Mechernich Pastoral Area and Ordo Communionis in Christo is already planned. From 20 to 27 April 2027, the group is set to return to the Eternal City. By then, however, Father Patrick will have long since been living several hundred kilometres further south-east. On 1 September, he will be moving to the Diocese of Regensburg, where he is due to serve in a parish in the Straubing area.

“Everything changes, and one must try to find something positive in every change,” said Eichinger-Heß. Father Patrick will now get to know different people and a different way of life. Nevertheless, there is “a touch of wistfulness” about letting him go. The pilgrimage leader promised not to lose touch. Surely an opportunity will arise to visit his former companion from Mechernich in southern Germany at some point.

And because Eichinger-Heß, as an experienced pilgrim to Rome, clearly thinks in terms of pilgrimages even at a farewell, a new idea was quickly born: perhaps they could even turn it into a pilgrimage at some point. “Altötting is nearby,” Patrick Mwanguhya added with a smile. It was fitting for a farewell where there was laughter time and again, yet nobody had to hide the fact that his departure was painful.

pp/ProfiPress Agency