By Matters India Reporter
Kozhikode: Bishop Emeritus Maxwell Valentine Noronha of Calicut died late night on January 28 at Nirmala Hospital, Marikunnu, in Kochikode, a town in Kerala. He would have turned 92 on February 14.
Bishop Noronha died at 11:20 pm, according to a press release from Father Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.
Funeral is scheduled at 3:30 pm on January 30 at Mother of God Cathedral, Kozhikode, the press note says.
Bishop Noronha was the first Indian prelate of Calicut, a post he held for 22 years. He took over from Bishop Aldo Maria Patroni, an Italian Jesuit missionary, in 1980.
He spent his retirement in the Shalom Priest Home at Vellimadukunnu, Kozhikode. Bishop Maxwell was a priest for 66 years and a bishop for 38 years.
He was born on February 14, 1926, in the Noronha Family at Quilon (now Kollam), a district in southern Kerala. He did his studies in the Kandy Papal Seminary, Sri Lanka, and was ordained a priest in 1952.
A year later, he was sent to St Aloysius College, Mangalore, for Bachelor of Arts studies. He then taught in St Joseph’s School Thalassery. In 1956 he was asked to purse bachelor course in education in Calicut, the former name of Kozhikode.
In 1957, his bishop sent him to Rome for higher studies in Canon Law.
On his return in 1962, he was appointed headmaster of diocesan school in Chundale, a post he held for 17 years. In 1979, Bishop Patroni appointed him the vicar general of the diocese.
The diocese of Calicut was erected on June 12, 1923, carving out from the Latin dioceses of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Mangalore and Mysore (Karnataka). Bishop Patroni was its third prelate. The first prelate was Jesuit Bishop Paolo Charles Perini, who retired nine years later. His successor was another Jesuit, Bishop Leone Proserpio who held the post until 1945.
The current prelate is Bishop Varghese Chakkalackal, who took over the diocese in 2012.