Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec, has been named Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops.

Pope Benedict made the appointment official June 30. In the post, Ouellet, 66, will become the highest-ranking Canadian ever in the Vatican Curia. He will oversee the appointment process for bishops all over the world, bringing the recommendations of the lengthy process to the pope, who makes the final appointment of bishops. The post is among the most powerful positions in the Vatican, ranking close to that of the Secretary of State and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith, vice president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, welcomed the cardinal's appointment on behalf of the bishops. "It's a clear sign of the huge confidence and trust Pope Benedict has in Cardinal Ouellet," Smith said. It's also "a tremendous privilege and blessing for Canada."

Smith said the pope has had a long relationship with Ouellet going back to Ouellet's days as a leading expert on the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. "They've known each other for a long time."

At the Congregation for Bishops, Ouellet will succeed 76-year-old Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

"It is a difficult and huge responsibility in the life of the Church," the cardinal told a news conference in Quebec City June 30. The Congregation for Bishops has a long tradition, he added. "I will not invent a new procedure; I will look for the best bishops possible."

Ouellet is a native of La Motte, Quebec. Among other appointments, he has served as rector of the seminary of Manizales in Colombia 1984-1988, rector of the Grande Seminaire de Montreal 1990-1994 and rector of St. Joseph Seminary in Edmonton 1994-1997.

Ouellet is no stranger to Rome. He studied in Rome at various times and left Edmonton in 1997 to accept an appointment to the chair of dogmatic theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II named him archbishop of Quebec. Since that is the oldest bishopric on the country, that also made him primate (nominal head) of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. In 2003, Ouellet was made a cardinal.

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Ouellet has served on several Vatican congregations and councils. He has been a member of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which he will now serve as president.

On June 10, Ouellet spoke at a liturgy closing the Year for Priests in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. He said the Church and the priesthood face "an unprecedented wave of challenges" because of the global sexual abuse scandal.

As archbishop of Quebec, Ouellet was often outspoken on issues such as abortion and the secularization of society. Ouellet said June 30 that he was not concerned that he would be remembered for his comments on abortion that provoked an avalanche of negative, even vitriolic news coverage last spring.

Over his seven and a half years in Quebec, he said he has been involved in many debates, including the role of the state in Catholic education, the redefinition of marriage and abortion. He added that part of a bishop's role is to be involved in public life through debate.

But he did not expect those debates to dominate his legacy. He said the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress, hosted by Ouellet and his Quebec Archdiocese, would be the "best memory of Quebec" during his time as archbishop. That event coincided with the 400th anniversary of Quebec's founding.

The Congress spread the good news that Catholicism "is still living among us," and "still flourishes," Ouellet said.

Though Quebec has the highest number of self-identified Catholics, it has the lowest church attendance, the highest rate of out-of-wedlock births, a high suicide rate and other indicators of what Ouellet had called the collapse of Catholic faith in the province. But he said he was "not pessimistic" about the future of the church in Quebec. He spoke of the new Catholic movements growing "discreetly" in Quebec and other signs of life and renewal in the province.

In a speech to the 2008 Catholic Media Convention in Toronto, Ouellet said Catholics "need some more militance" to reaffirm "the values of our Catholic tradition in Quebec," adding that, after 40 years of secularization in Quebec "the moment has come" for a new way of looking at the Church's historical role in society.

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

Courtesy of Canadian Catholic News. Please do not reprint without permission.

July 8/2010