Benguela, 01 August, 2024 / 7:22 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis has erected the Catholic Diocese of Ganda in Angola and appointed Bishop Estêvão Binga, who is currently serving as the Auxiliary Bishop of the country’s Catholic Diocese of Benguela as its pioneer Bishop.
The erection of the new Episcopal See, the twentieth in the Southern African nation, was made public by the Holy See Press office on Thursday, August 1.
Carved out from the Benguela Diocese, the newly erected Episcopal See becomes one of the suffragan Dioceses in the Metropolitan See of Huambo.
The newly erected Angolan Diocese measures 24.447 square kilometers. It has a population of 947.826 of which 633.636 are Catholic faithful, representing 66.9 percent of the total population of the territory of the Diocese, according to the Holy See's August 1 report.
Born in Angola’s Catholic Archdiocese of Lubango in September 1966, Bishop Binga was ordained a Priest for the Diocese of Benguela in April 1996 after completing his Priestly studies and formation program at Bom Pastor (Good Shepherd) Seminary and the Cristo Rei Seminary in Huambo Diocese.
