Dar es Salaam, 17 September, 2025 / 9:04 pm (ACI Africa).
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.”
