Jesuit priest Linus Nirmal Gomes passed away early on Saturday in the city. He was 99.

Most Reverend Linus Nirmal Gomes spent his last seven years at St Xavier’s College Jesuit community as the senior most clergy.

He was the first bishop of Baruipur Catholic Diocese, when this new diocese was created, bifurcating from the Calcutta Archidiocese in 1977.

The funeral mass of Most Reverend Bishop Linus Nirmal Gomes, SJ, will be held on Monday at 8.30am for common people at St Teresa’s Church, Moulali and at 11am at the Cathedral of Baruipur.

The Mass for the priests will be held at 3pm on Monday at the Cathedral of Baruipur. Before becoming bishop, he was parish priest at St Teresa Parish Taltala, Calcutta.

Later, as Bishop Emeritus, he was sent to Dhaka in Bangladesh to serve the Jesuit Mission from 1997 to 2014.

Most Reverend Linus Nirmal Gomes was born in a village near Dhaka on September 7, 1921. He joined St Xavier’s College, Calcutta, in 1942 and stayed in the college hostel. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1942.

Along with other Jesuit priests, he established the first Bengali medium school of the Catholic order, St Peter’s High School at Taltala, Calcutta, and became the first headmaster.