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Collections and recollections

“The Bishop,” Catherine Prescott

Collections and recollections the bishop“Benoni Ogwal-Abwang was an Episcopal bishop in Uganda during the reign of the dictator Idi Amin, who murdered and persecuted Christians. Benoni and his family had to run for their lives through the woods at night. He and his wife Alice had five children, and the oldest son stayed behind in Uganda. That son died of AIDS in about 1993. The rest of the family had come to the U.S. and lived here in Harrisburg.  Since Bishop Ben was in exile, it was very dangerous for him to go back for the funeral. So Alice went alone. 

Ted and I were attending St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Harrisburg at that time. Bishop Ben, which is what everybody called him, was the priest there (as opposed to a bishop, since that office in the Episcopal Church doesn’t transfer from country to country). Though we don’t have an Episcopal background, we were attracted to the church because of him, and we came to love his congregation, as well. The first Easter we were there, he wore the vestments you see in the painting, and I was a bit shocked. I wasn’t used to formal vestments and had always seen them as a sign of arrogance and power, but that day, seeing them on this extremely devoted and humble man…I changed and I wanted to paint the image. I asked him to pose for me, and we had a photo session.

During the time that I was doing this painting in 1995 … a friend stopped by and told us that one of Ben’s other sons, a twin who was a teenager, had been killed in Harrisburg the night before.  When we went to see the family the day after the murder, Alice said, ‘I ran from a man with a gun and I came here and met a man with a gun.’”

—Catherine Prescott, art adjunct

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