Tanzanian Vatican Diplomat Archbishop Rugambwa Dies at 67 after Serving as Apostolic Nuncio in Five Countries

Dar es Salaam, 17 September, 2025 / 9:04 PM

Archbishop Novatus Rugambwa, who served as the representative of the Holy Father in São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Honduras, and later New Zealand and the Pacific, has passed on at the age of 67.

In a statement on Wednesday, September 17, Bishop Francis Jovitus Mwijage of Tanzania’s Catholic Diocese of Bukoba announces the passing on of Archbishop Rugambwa, saying the Tanzanian-born Vatican diplomat was “called by God on the evening of September 16, 2025, while receiving treatment in Rome, Italy.”

“Let us continue to pray for his soul to attain eternal rest,” Bishop Mwijage says, and adds, “Funeral arrangements are being coordinated.”

Meanwhile members of the Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) in New Zealand, where Archbishop Rugambwa served between March 2019 and July 2024, say they have received the news of the passing on of the late Vatican Diplomat “with sadness.” 

In a  in a report on Facebook on September 17,  NZCBC President, Bishop Stephene Marmion Lowe of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, describes Archbishop Rugambwa  as having been “a man of deep faith and of prayer who served the Church in New Zealand and the Pacific with warmth and generosity.”

He says the late Tanzania-born Vatican Diplomat, who resigned in July 2024, suffered a significant stroke in October 2023 and moved to Rome in March 2024 to continue his recovery.

Archbishop Rugambwa died shortly after meeting the new Pope Leo XIV, Bishop Marminion recounted, adding, “It was a source of joy to see a recent photo of Archbishop Novatus meeting Pope Leo. Sadly, his health deteriorated in the weeks since and he has now returned to the House of the Father.”

Born in October 1957 in the Catholic Diocese of Bukoba, Archbishop Rugambwa was ordained to the Priesthood in 1986.

He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Tangaria in February 2010, and ordained the following month for the Tangaria Titular See. 

The late Vatican Diplomat served as the Apostolic Nuncio to Angola and Tomé and Príncipe for five years from February 2010 before his transfer to Honduras in March 2015 and later to New Zealand and the Pacific in 2019.