CONDOLENCES POURED in for Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus Samuel Carter who died after a battle with cancer at the University Hospital of the West Indies early yesterday morning.
The Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC), headed by Dr. Howard Gregory, said in a statement that the Church in Jamaica had lost an outstanding son and patriarch.
Archbishop Carter, the first Jamaican appointed a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, died in the hospital's Tony Thwaites Wing just after 1:00 a.m. He was Archbishop from 1970 to 1995, when he retired. The JCC said he was "a pioneer who served in facilitating the transition from foreign leadership to indigenous leadership of the Church at an important crossroads in the life of the nation and the Caribbean as a whole".
He was the founding president of the Caribbean Conference of Churches and, on the local scene, served as president and treasurer of the JCC, the latter position he held for many years terminating only a few months ago when his health began to fail.
"He was a familiar face and voice in major ecumenical contexts in this nation and took every opportunity to share his wisdom and experience in these settings," the JCC said.
He was described as a person of generosity who gave his personal resources to many causes within his denomination and in ecumenical ventures.
"As long as he had the resources or access to the resources and there was a need, he would respond accordingly," the JCC said. "It was often interesting to watch him shy away from the spotlight in committee meetings when questioned about the source of certain contributions. He would often talk about the friend who offered a loan or gift to address a pressing need, we however, became wise after a while as to who this friend was."
The Jamaica Labour Party also issued a statement stating that Archbishop Carter was going to be missed.
"His stellar achievement was the Jamaicanisation of the Roman Catholic Church in Jamaica," the party said in a release.
"He was a great believer in education and founded Campion College, which is today the academic leader of high schools in Jamaica. He constantly gave counsel and advice to individuals and organisations which were not in any way related to his denomination and encouraged his fellow clergy to follow his example."
Prime Minister P.J Patterson said all Jamaica owed a debt of gratitude to Archbishop Carter for his devotion to the democratic process, his commitment to providing access to affordable and quality education for youngsters, his love and concern for the elderly and poor and his words of encouragement and fatherly guidance.
Archbishop Carter was born in St. Andrew in 1919 and received his early education at the St. Aloysius Boys' School and the St. Simon's College in Kingston. He later went to the United States where he studied at the Weston College and Boston College, Massachusetts; St. Bueno's College, North Wales and the Catholic University of America. He began his career in 1939 as a Latin instructor at the St. Simon's College in Kingston, serving until 1941. He then went into the Church, was ordained priest in 1954 and in 1958 he was made assistant parish priest at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kingston.
Between 1958 and 1966 he was secretary of the Jamaica Save the Children Fund. In 1959 he founded and served as the first headmaster of Campion College, St. Andrew. He became auxiliary bishop of Kingston in 1966 and then archbishop in 1970.
He was also a leader in the civil sense and had a leadership role in the work of the Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE). He was for several decades a part of various panels of church leaders who worked to ward off conflict in the political arena.
