KATHMANDU (UCAN) -- Bhutan's national weekly newspaper honored the memory of the late Jesuit Brother Michael Quinn, who died May 16 in Canada. He was 91.

On May 22, "Kuensel" weekly carried an article recalling the service of Brother Quinn, who had worked from 1964-1978 in the Buddhist kingdom.

The news report gave an account of the Canadian missioner's work in various schools in Bhutan, apart from work in Nepal and India.

"All his students in Bhutan remember him as a soft-spoken and kind gentleman," the Kuensel report said also praising his "excellent" work in the infirmary. It noted that the brother had directed many Shakespearean plays.

Born 1908 in Halifax, Canada, Brother Quinn studied nursing, worked as a printer and served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police before joining the Jesuits in 1936.

In 1964 he went to Bhutan and taught at the government school in Trashingang. Fourteen years later he left Bhutan for Kathmandu, where he was active in social work including giving pastoral care to Christians jailed for evangelizing.

In 1990 he went back to Canada to retire, where he eventually succumbed to aphasia, from which he suffered for many years.

Speaking to UCA News, Kathmandu-based Jesuits recalled that prior to going to Bhutan, Brother Quinn went to Darjeeling in West Bengal, India, in 1951 and worked as an infirmarian at Jesuit-run St. Joseph's school in Northpoint.

According to Jesuits in Nepal, those who met Brother Quinn "would never forget the tall and kind Canadian Jesuit."

When Brother Quinn arrived in Bhutan, Father William Mackey, another Jesuit, was the only Catholic missioner in the tiny Himalayan kingdom which forbids the propagation of other religions.

Beginning with Father Mackey, a number of Catholic missioners were allowed to work in government schools. Almost all were later asked to leave. When Father Mackey died in Thimpu in 1995, he was the only missioner in Bhutan.

In 1998 Christians, mostly of Indian and Nepalese descent, were estimated to number 10,000 of Bhutan's 2 million population.

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