Korhogo, 07 March, 2025 / 7:56 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis has erected the Catholic Diocese of Bagamoyo in Tanzania, and appointed Bishop Stephano Lameck Musomba, the member of the Order of St. Augustine (OSB), who has been serving as Auxiliary Bishop of the country’s Dar-es-Salaam Catholic Diocese as pioneer Local Ordinary.
In the latest administrative changes in Africa that the Holy See press office made public on Friday, March 7, the Holy Father also appointed Mons. Armand Koné, who has been serving as the Vicar Delegate of Korhogo Archdiocese in Ivory Coast, as Archbishop of the same Ivorian Metropolitan See.
Bagamoyo Diocese
Carved out from Tanzania’s Catholic Diocese of Morogoro and Dar-es-Salaam Archdiocese, the newly established Bagamoyo Diocese becomes the sixth Suffragan Diocese of the Metropolitan See of Dar-es-Salaam alongside Ifakara, Mahenge, Morogoro, Tanga, and Zanzibar.
Bagamoyo Diocese is to be headquartered in the Tanzanian coastal town of Bagamoyo, whose original meaning is from the Kiswahili phrase “Bwaga Moyo” (lay down your heart). In the 19th Century, Arab slave traders used Bagamoyo as the last point of the caravans that ferried slaves from the interior territories of Tanzania. There, the slaves were imprisoned and transported by ship at night to Zanzibar slave market. Thus, the term “Bwaga Moyo” – slaves deported from Bagamoyo lost all hope of ever seeing their homeland again.
