FELIX (FINK) OF ANTWERP. – Capuchin missionary and writer of the Belgian province, born in Antwerp on 11 January 1868, entered the novitiate on 13 May 1886, departed for the mission in the Punjab (India) in May 1889, ordained priest on 26 April 1891, died at Maryabad on 29 March 1932.
He devoted himself especially to the conversion and social uplift of the wretched populations known as “pariahs”; on his own initiative, having obtained vast tracts of land from the British government, he established villages or colonies of newly Christian families, such as Maryabad, Khuspur (1900), Lawlippur (1908), Montgomery (1914), Rahimpur (1921). He served as Apostolic Administrator of the Apostolic Prefecture of Bettiah (Bihar, 1916–21); on 21 July 1927 he was appointed superior of the Punjab mission. By order of his superiors, he collected numerous documents concerning Bishop Anastasius Hartmann, which he delivered in 1908 to the Sacred Congregation of Rites. He fruitfully engaged in the research of documents and the historical study of the missions of the Capuchins and Jesuits in India; he wrote valuable articles and monographs.