Casae Calanae was a town in the Roman province of Numidia.
The Roman provinces were the lands and people outside of Rome itself that were controlled by the Republic and later the Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman who was appointed as governor. Although different in many ways, they were similar to the states in Australia or the United States, the regions in the United Kingdom or New Zealand, or the prefectures in Japan. Canada refers to some of its territory as provinces.
Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in what is now Algeria and a smaller part of Tunisia and small part of Libya in the Maghreb. The polity was originally divided between Massylii in the east and Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into one kingdom. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.
The names of two bishops of the town are known. The Catholic bishop Fortunatus took part in the Conference of Carthage (411) that brought together both Catholic and Donatist bishops of Roman Africa. On that occasion Casae Calanae had no Donatist bishop. Optantius was one of the Catholic bishops whom the Vandal king Huneric summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled. [1] [2]
Donatism was a heresy leading to schism in the Church of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman Africa province in the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. Named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus, Donatism flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries.
The Diocese of Africa was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of North Africa, except Mauretania Tingitana. Its seat was at Carthage, and it was subordinate to the Praetorian prefecture of Italy.
The Vandal Kingdom or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Genseric, and ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean from 435 AD to 534 AD.
No longer a residential bishopric, Casae Calane is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. [3]
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the pope. Its central administration is the Holy See.
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese".
The first titular bishop of the see was appointed on 10 June 1966. The see's current bishop is Richard Higgins, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. [4]
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that he be ordained for a specific place. There are more bishops than there are functioning dioceses. Therefore, a priest appointed not to head a diocese as its diocesan bishop but to be an auxiliary bishop, a papal diplomat, or an official of the Roman Curia is appointed to a titular see.
An episcopal see is, in the usual meaning of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Colonel Richard Brendan Higgins, USAF (ret), is an Irish-born American Roman Catholic bishop. Bishop Higgins is the titular bishop of the Casae Calanae and serves as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.
