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Laurean Rugambwa

Styles of
Laurean Rugambwa
External Ornaments of a Cardinal Bishop.svg
Reference style His Eminence
Spoken style Your Eminence
Informal style Cardinal
See Dar es Salaam (emeritus)

Laurean Rugambwa (July 12, 1912 – December 8, 1997) was the first modern native African Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Dar es Salaam from 1968 to 1992, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1960.

Laurean Rugambwa was born to an aristocratic family in Bukongo, Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), and baptized with his parents at age 8, on March 19, 1921. After studying at the Regional Grand Seminary of Katigondo in Uganda, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Burcardo Huwiler, MAfr, on December 12, 1943. Rugambwa then did missionary work in West Africa until 1949, when he went to Rome to study at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, from where he obtained his doctorate in canon law.

On December 13, 1951, Rugambwa was appointed Titular Bishop of Febiana and the first Apostolic Vicar of Lower Kagera. The youngest of Africa's bishops, he received his episcopal consecration on February 10, 1952 from Archbishop David Mathew, with Bishops Joseph Kiwanuka, MAfr, and Joseph Blomjous serving as co-consecrators. Upon his Apostolic Vicariate's elevation to a diocese on March 25, 1953, Rugambwa was named Bishop of Rutabo by Pope Pius XII. He was created Cardinal Priest of S. Francesco a Ripa by Pope John XXIII in the consistory of March 28, 1960, and thus became the first native African cardinal. On the following June 21, the diocese was renamed as Bukoba.


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