Rucuma
Rucuma is a former city and bishopric in Roman North Africa, which remains a Latin Catholic titular see.
History
It was among the cities of sufficient importance in the late Roman province of Africa Proconsularis to become a suffragan bishopric of its capital Carthage's Metropolitan Archbishopric, yet faded so completely, plausibly at the 7th century advent of Islam, that its location, now in northern Tunisia, wasn't identified precisely.Historically recorded Diocesan bishops were :
- Lucianus, attended the Council of Carthage in 256, called by Saint Cyprian on lapsi
- Maximus, who intervened at another Council of Carthage in 646, against the heresy monothelitism.
Titular see
The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as titular bishopric of Rucuma / Rucumen.It has had the following incumbents, of the fitting Episcopal rank:
- Jean-Joseph-Léonce Villepelet as emeritate, previously Bishop of Nantes ; died 1982
- Patrick Fani Chakaipa as Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Salisbury, next Metropolitan Archbishop of Salisbury, President of Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Metropolitan Archbishop of Harare, President of Inter-Regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa
- John Huston Ricard, Josephites, next Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Baltimore, Bishop of Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee,
- Thomas Maria Renz as Auxiliary Bishop of Rottenburg–Stuttgart .