Caribbean Cardinal Felix dies at the age of 91

By Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal Kelvin Felix, the retired Caribbean archbishop of Castries, Saint Lucia, died May 30 at the age of 91.

In a message to Archbishop Gabriel Malzaire, the current archbishop of Castries, Pope Francis remembered "with deep gratitude the late cardinal's many years of dedicated episcopal ministry in Saint Lucia, especially his efforts in fostering the education of young people and his contribution to the church throughout the Caribbean."

Archbishop Malzaire had announced the cardinal's death during a Corpus Christi procession May 30 and said the late cardinal had offered his final illness to God as a prayer for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Pope Francis had made the churchman a cardinal in 2014 when he already was retired and over the age of 80 and therefore ineligible to enter a conclave. When he received his red hat, he was serving at a small parish in Soufrière, Dominica, and told Catholic News Service that he had been trying to "re-establish" himself in full-time priestly ministry after 27 years as a bishop.

Born in Roseau, Dominica, Feb. 15, 1933, he studied for the priesthood at St. John Vianney Seminary in Trinidad and Tobago. When he was ordained to the priesthood in 1956, he became the first diocesan priest from Roseau and the first Catholic priest to be ordained in Dominica.

After several years of pastoral work in Dominica, he went to St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and earned a degree in education. He then went to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana where he completed a master's degree in sociology and anthropology. He also studied at the University of Bradford in England and ministered to the Dominican immigrant community there.

Returning to the Caribbean, he taught at St. John Vianney Seminary and the nearby University of the West Indies at St. Augustine.

St. John Paul II named him archbishop of Castries in 1981 and he led the archdiocese until his retirement in 2008.

He had served as president of the ecumenical Conference of Churches of the Caribbean and as president of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.

His death leaves the College of Cardinals with 236 members, of whom 127 are under the age of 80 and eligible to enter a conclave to elect a new pope.