Catholic Intelligence

Diocese of Benghazi

Berenicen(sis)

The Apostolic Vicariate of Benghazi is a Latin Church missionary jurisdiction covering eastern Libya, erected in 1927 as the Apostolic Vicariate of Cyrenaica and renamed in 1939. It is immediately subject to the Holy See and led by Apostolic Vicar Sandro Overend Rigillo, O.F.M., since 2023.

The see

Rank
Apostolic vicariate
Tradition
Latin Church
Erected
22 June 1939
Latin
Berenicen(sis)
Patron
Immaculate Conception
Annuario code
001000389

The see in figures

Catholics
6,000
Population
1,388,000
Catholic share
0.4%

of the people living within its bounds

Priests
5
Catholics per priest
1,200
Extent
757,000 km²
Catholics per km²
0.0

Figures as recorded in the register, from the Annuario Pontificio and the see's own published statements. Shares and ratios are computed from the two figures shown beside them.

The bishop

Apostolic Administrator
Sandro Overend Rigillo, O.F.M.

A see whose chair stands empty is recorded as vacant rather than filled with a guess. On what a bishop is, see the bishop.

The cathedral

Benghazi Cathedral stands in Benghazi, the church that holds the cathedra from which this see takes its name.

On what a cathedral is, see the cathedral; every see church on earth is gathered at the cathedrals.

History

Libya's Apostolic Vicariate of Benghazi (Latin: Vicariatus Apostolicus Berenicensis) is a Latin Church territory answering immediately to the Holy See, belonging to no ecclesiastical province. Benghazi Cathedral, in the city of Benghazi, serves as its cathedral.

How to reach it

Chancery
Vicariato Apostolico, Rhaba, Benghazi, Libya
Telephone
925.258.954

This see keeps no website of its own, so its chancery is published here: withholding it would protect nothing and leave a reader with nowhere to go. Where a see publishes its own site, the register sends you there instead.

What is kept by invitation

The record above is published because it is public: what this see is, when it was erected, who holds its chair, and where it stands among its neighbours.

The working record is not. The clergy of the see, and the hours of Mass, confession and adoration in the parishes within it, are kept for members, and a person reads every request.

Ask to enter

Sources

Wikipedia

This record is compiled from the published statements of the see and the references of the Holy See, among them the Annuario Pontificio. On the method, see the keeping of the record. Whoever finds an error is asked, in charity, to write: [email protected].