FATHER GABRIEL KIGOZI

Father Gabriel Therese Kigozi, a son of Uganda, a priest of the Diocese of Ruhengeri in Rwanda, died at Saint Peter’s Presbytery, Ardrossan on 12 April 2011 at the age of 54.

A refugee of the genocide in Rwanda, he came to our diocese for safety. He worked as a priest of the diocese for about fifteen years - in Kilmarnock, Dumfries, Ayr and the Benedictine Convent in Largs. Gabriel was a Godsend to many of the priests, perfectly willing to drop what he was doing to cover for Mass in the parishes of our Deanery.

His family in Uganda will sorely miss him and his friends throughout Scotland and beyond will mourn his passing. Gabriel was first and always a priest. His African ways were sometimes a little bit difficult for us but his smile, his generosity of spirit, his gratefulness for small favours, will always stay in our hearts.

In his illness, he never complained and we can have nothing but gratitude to his doctors, his nurses, the local pharmacists and to his friends for their kindness to him. Perhaps now he can happily put aside his mobile phones as well as his sufferings.

God will have made a place for him in heaven just as we tried to make a place for him here.

May Gabriel rest in peace.

Canon Matt