Born on 31 August 1936 at Kaduthuruthy in Kerala in an ordinary family, Rev.Fr.Thomas Felix was ordained a priest of Christ in the CMI congregation on 16 May 1964. The early years of his priestly life were spent at Changanacherry helping the poor people of the locality, helping them to meet their immediate needs under the patronage of Archbishop Mathew Kavukatt and the company of several priests of CMI congregation and Changanacherry archdiocese. The hard lives and miserable conditions of a few mentally challenged persons and their parents, whom he came across along with the childhood experience of a mentally challenged boy in his hometown, drastically changed his vision of life and he decided to work for them.

These experiences, filled with the conviction of an inner call to dedicate his life totally for the cause of these neglected ones, moulded his life and mission. There starts the history of his journey to the unfathomable depths of lives of the mentally challenged going ups and downs.

Rev. Fr. Thomas Felix was the Founder President of All Kerala Association for Mentally Challenged and also the Director of Central Institute on Mental Retardation working for about 50 years for educating and rehabilitating the mentally challenged children. He was also a philanthropist and an internationally acclaimed special educator. Rev. Fr. Thomas Felix was the pioneer in the field of special education in Kerala. He did several paper presentations all over the world and also conducted several workshops for both parents and children for rehabilitating the mentally challenged children.

The 3Cs concept developed by Rev. Fr. Thomas Felix has been very effective in training the Intellectually Challenged persons is recognized and implemented by Benedictine University of Oklahoma, USA as a part of its curriculum. He had conducted short term training program course at Oklahoma Benedictine Institute on Mental Retardation, U.S.A. He is also the author of many books. His mission and vision paved the way to thousands of people to help and support the differently abled children.

Numerous are the contributions of Rev. Fr. Thomas Felix CMI, in the area of learning and rehabilitating the persons with Intellectual Disability. After about five decades of his untiring work in the society, Rev. Fr. Thomas Felix CMI was called for his eternal reward on 11^th January, 2023. The society at large and people working in the Disability sector, people with disabilities and their parents owe a lot to him for his committed life. We, the CIMR family bow our heads before this great soul who guided us in all these years.