Pope names Quebec cardinal head of Congregation for Bishops

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has named Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec to be the new prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that helps the pope choose bishops for Latin-rite dioceses around the world.

Cardinal Ouellet, 66, will succeed Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 76, who has headed the congregation since 2000.

The appointment was announced at the Vatican June 30. In addition to serving as prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Ouellet also will be president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which promotes cooperation between the various offices of the Vatican and the Latin American bishops' council.

Cardinal Ouellet welcomed his appointment to one of the Vatican's most powerful posts "with gratitude, but also with a sense of fear," at a June 30 news conference at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Quebec.

In that role, he will head the office that advises the pope in choosing the world's bishops.

"The holy father has to be very informed, with clarity, with authenticity in order to make a good decision. So it is a difficult task," said Cardinal Ouellet, the primate of Canada and the first North American cardinal to be put in charge of the bishops congregation.

The cardinal said that while he views the appointment as "a mark of great confidence," he feels fear because his new post presents him with a "difficult" and "huge" responsibility.

The cardinal, stressing the importance of the prefect, said bishops play a key role in the life of the church and have to be clever, prudent and patient in working with the rest of the church community. He said he would help bishops be good bishops while respecting their individual styles and personalities.

Ouellet said he expects to officially take over as prefect of the Congregation of Bishops at the end of August or the beginning of September.

Cardinal Ouellet is no stranger to Rome or the Roman Curia, but he also has the direct pastoral experience of leading a large archdiocese.

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, founder and CEO of Canada's Salt and Light Television, said, "The Curia is only as effective as the seasoned shepherds who lead the various departments" and "the Congregation for Bishops, in particular, must embody what it strives to do: prepare shepherds and pastors to the universal church.

"Under the leadership of Cardinal Ouellet, I believe that the Congregation for Bishops will do great work in a very challenging time," Father Rosica said in an e-mail interview with Catholic News Service.

Cardinal Ouellet had studied in Rome and returned to the city to teach in 1996. A year later, he was appointed chair of dogmatic theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.

In 2001, he was named a bishop and appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He also served on the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews.

In 2002 Pope John Paul II named him archbishop of Quebec and in 2003 he made him a cardinal.

He was one of only two cardinals chosen to deliver major speeches to the two-day World Meeting of Priests that preceded the closing of the Year for Priests with Pope Benedict in early June.

He spoke to the priests June 10 about an "unprecedented wave of challenges against the church and the priesthood following the revelation of scandals whose gravity we must recognize and sincerely work to repair."

"But beyond the necessary purification our sins require, we must also recognize that at the present moment there is open opposition to our service to the truth and there are attacks from both outside and inside that aim to divide the church. We pray together for the unity of the church and for the sanctification of priests, these heralds of the good news of salvation," he said.

Cardinal Ouellet has a reputation as an inspiring theologian whose teaching is close to that of Pope Benedict.

The pope named him a member of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist in 2005 and he was elected to head the commission that drafted the synod's final message. In 2008, he hosted the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec.

Born June 8, 1944, in La Motte, Quebec, he earned a degree in theology from the University of Montreal in 1968 and was ordained a priest for the Montreal Archdiocese. He joined the Sulpician order in 1972 and was sent to Rome to study philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

He taught at seminaries in Colombia and Montreal before earning his doctorate in dogmatic theology from Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University in 1983.

He later served as rector of seminaries in Manizales, Colombia, in Montreal and in Edmonton, before returning to Rome to teach.

Cardinal Ouellet speaks French, English, Italian, German and Spanish.

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Contributing to this story was Adeshina Emmanuel in Washington.

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