Cox, Xavier, 1917-1984, Capuchin brother

Patrick John Cox was born in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) in 1917. He entered the Capuchin novitiate in Kilkenny in July 1938 and took Xavier as his religious name. He was solemnly professed as a friar in 1942. Soon after his final profession, he volunteered for missionary work in the Prefecture of Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He left Ireland in late 1943 and undertook the difficult journey to Africa at the height of the Second World War. He arrived in Northern Rhodesia in January 1944. He spent twenty years working at the Sancta Maria mission station in Lukulu in the Western Province of Zambia. He also assisted in the building of a church and adjoining friary at the Saint Martin de Porres mission in Kaoma in 1968. A cancer diagnosis forced him to travel to Cape Town in South Africa to seek medical treatment in the early 1980s. He died in Cape Town on 2 December 1984 and was buried in the Capuchin plot in Maitland Cemetery.

Baptismal name: Patrick John Cox
Religious name: Br. Xavier Cox OFM Cap.
Date of birth: 17 March 1917
Place of birth: Dublin
Name of father: Christopher Cox (Provisioner’s Assistant)
Name of mother: Margaret Mary Cox (née Costello)
Date of reception into the Capuchin Order: 20 July 1938
Date of first profession: 21 July 1939
Date of final profession: 21 July 1942
Missionary activities: Travelled to Northern Rhodesia on 12 Nov. 1943
Date of death: Cape Town, South Africa
Place of burial: Maitland Cemetery, Cape Town, South Africa