A leading African Roman Catholic churchman, Cardinal Bernadin Gantin of Benin, has died aged 86, a government official said on Tuesday.Gantin was formerly Dean of the Vatican's College of Cardinals. He died in Paris on Tuesday, said Benin's government secretary-general Victor Topanou, speaking in the capital Cotonou.
"We have just lost one of the great sons of our country and of the entire continent of Africa," he said.
The government had sent a minister to Paris to accompany the remains back to his native country for burial, the official said.
Born in Cotonou in 1922, Gantin was ordained in 1951 and in 1960 Pope John XXIII appointed him Archbishop of Cotonou. He was appointed Cardinal in 1976 by Pope Paul VI, at the same time as Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
He served as chairman of the regional episcopal conference of Africa, linking the west African states Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Nigeria and Guinea.
In 1988, as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Gantin published a decree excommunicating Marcel Lefebvre, a controversial traditionalist conservative French bishop who refused to accept the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council.
In 1970, Lefebvre had founded the Society of St. Pius X. In 1988, against the orders of Pope John Paul II, he consecrated four bishops to continue his work with this Society.
During the Conclave following Pope John Paul I's death in 1978, Cardinal Gantin was thought to be one of the papabili, the cardinals considered favourites to be elected pope.
On his death he bore the title of Dean Emeritus of the College of Cardinals. He was Dean of the College of Cardinals from 1993 to 2002.
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