Catholic Priest Fr Clement Jolly CSSR passed at a Home for the Aged at Morne Daniel Saturday evening

​Well-known Catholic Priest Fr Clement Jolly CSSR passed away at a Home for the Aged at Morne Daniel on the evening of Saturday 16th December 2017. He belonged to the world-wide religious congregation, the Redemptorists, and had been ailing for some time.
 
Fr Jolly was born on 13th November 1932 in St. Joseph. He attended the San Sauver Government School and the Wesley Government School, where he won the then newly-founded Co-operative Scholarship to the Dominica Grammar School.
 
He graduated in 1950 and taught at the St. Mary’s Academy for some time. He later migrated to the United States where he was drafted into the US Army. He served in the Armed Forces for two years. Fr Jolly was professed as a Redemptorist on 31st December 1956 and was ordained a priest on 22nd February 1962. He served in many parishes in Dominica.
 
In 1970, he went to the University of Rome where he studied Dogmatic Theology, and later received his Licentiate in Systematic Theology, from the ‘Université Catholique de Louvain’, in Belgium. He authored more than 20 books on social life, and the church in Dominica, and was a regular columnist in newspapers on the island.
 
In 1993, he received Dominica’s second highest award, the Meritorious Service Award. He subsequently received the Golden Drum Award.
 
Superior of the Holy Redeemer Retreat House, Fr Rodney Olive CSSR described Fr Jolly as a great benefactor of the poor, and a leading voice of justice for society and the church in Dominica.
 
He also contends that Fr Jolly was a “prophetic voice who proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ.” (Isaiah 61:1-2;10-11).