NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. (CNS) -- The U.S.-born former archbishop of Suva, Fiji, Archbishop George H. Pearce, died Aug. 30 at a retirement residence. He was 94.

As bishop of the Islands of Samoa and Tokelau, then-Bishop Pearce participated in the four eight-week sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He was one of the last surviving bishop-participants in the historic sessions from 1962 to 1965.

A native of Boston, Archbishop Pearce served as a missionary in the Samoa Islands with the Marists for six years from 1949 to 1956, when he was named vicar apostolic of Samoa and Tokelau and ordained a bishop in Boston on June 29, 1956. Ten years later, he was named the first bishop for Apia, Samoa, when it was erected as a diocese. A year later, in 1967, he was made archbishop of Suva.

Archbishop Pearce went on to serve as administrator of the Diocese of Agana, which covers Guam and the Marianas Islands from 1969 to 1971. He stepped down as Archbishop of Suva in 1976 and returned to the United States. Upon his return, he served as a member of the core group of Bethany House of Intercession at Warwick Neck, Rhode Island, and its second location at Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Archbishop Pearce also served as personal assistant to former Providence, R.I., Bishop Louis E. Gelineau, and had been active in the charismatic and pro-life groups of the region. He regularly presided at confirmations and other ceremonies in the Diocese of Providence.

A Mass of Christian burial was scheduled for Sept. 4 at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, in Providence, R.I., with burial at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Andover, Massachusetts, at a later date.