By Andy Blatchford
Lethbridge Herald
June 30, 2010
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/content/view/205649/111/
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| Cardinal Marc Ouellet responds to media at a news conference about his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Wednesday, June 30, 2010 in Quebec City. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot |
MONTREAL - The Vatican has promoted Canada's highest-ranking Roman Catholic priest, giving the controversial cardinal a powerful role in Pope Benedict's inner circle.
Marc Cardinal Ouellet was named chief of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, a committee that vets bishop appointments and recommends candidates to the pope.
Ouellet, the Archbishop of Quebec and the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, says he was surprised to get a tap on the shoulder from Pope Benedict.
"It is a mark of great confidence from the Holy Father and I am very grateful to him," Ouellet told a news conference Wednesday in Quebec City.
"It is a huge responsibility."
But the outspoken 66-year-old's road to the Vatican has been a bumpy one, and his time at the upper echelon of the church in Canada has been marked by controversy.
Ouellet, who has denounced allegations that the Pope covered up cases of sexual abuse by priests, was widely criticized this spring after he described abortion as an unjustifiable moral crime, even in rape cases.
He defended his remark as church doctrine, but was condemned by the Harper government, Quebec provincial politicians and feminist groups. One newspaper columnist even expressed his wish that Ouellet would suffer a slow, painful death.
When asked Wednesday about the legacy he will leave behind, Ouellet answered he hopes people over time will better understand the choices he has made.
"The historians will have to do their work," he said.
The appointment will see Ouellet succeed 76-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who has retired after nearly a decade in the post.
Ouellet, once considered a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, also aims to help Pope Benedict reverse the Catholic church's ongoing decline in the Western world.
"It's a difficult time, it's a time of crisis and so it is a time of decision," said Ouellet, who has known Pope Benedict for years.
"I've been supporting him in difficult times."
But those who disagree with Ouellet's firm stance on issues such as abortion are calling his appointment another distressing signal of the direction of the church.
"In his capacity as an official of the church, he should have been speaking up for the rights of those victimized within the church and for the rights of women in civil society," said Lee Lakeman, spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.
"When he can get pregnant, he can have an opinion."
But others, who wholeheartedly agree with his positions, are happy for Ouellet, even though they will miss him after he departs for Rome in the coming months.
"He has the courage to stand up and speak the truth when it's necessary," said Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer for Campaign Life Coalition, a pro-life advocacy group.
"The only regret is that if he's moved to Rome then he won't be at the disposal of the people in Canada, so it will be a loss for us."
Ouellet's promotion to such a prestigious position is being lauded as a move that will raise the profile of Canada — and the cardinal himself.
"(It) can bring the point of view of the Canadians (to) the whole church," Montreal Archbishop Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte said in an interview.
Turcotte said Ouellet will not only be in a position to explain Canada to his peers in the Vatican, but also to Pope Benedict himself.
"Sometimes (Canada) is a little obscure for those who are living in Rome," he said.
Could this job promotion also be a springboard for Ouellet to eventually succeed Pope Benedict?
"I don't know," Turcotte said. "In the church, it's not like in a political party — we don't prepare succession during the time of the Pope himself.
"But he will be in a place where he will be very well known by many, many bishops in the world. I think it's interesting that his personality is going to be observed by many and we don't know the future.
"I prefer to leave that in the hands of God, than in the hands of the humans."
Turcotte said Ouellet did his duty as a church official, even if his positions sometimes erupted into controversy.
"The position of the church was given by Christ, by the gospel and by the theology, the tradition of the Church," he said.
"We can say that many of those positions are not very popular in society today."
Ouellet, a native of La Motte in Quebec's Abitibi region, became Archbishop of Quebec City in 2002 and has been secretary of the pontifical council for promoting Christian unity.
Other Canadians have played prominent roles in the Vatican, but Ouellet's position, which will propel him into the Pope's inner circle, is likely the most significant, says religious studies professor Douglas Farrow.
"Certainly he is someone in whom Pope Benedict invests a good deal of trust," the McGill University professor said.
Still, Farrow says this posting doesn't necessarily mean Ouellet is being groomed for the papacy, especially since there are several candidates who could eventually succeed Pope Benedict.
Ouellet doesn't think this position will move him to the front of the line, either.
"I don't think that I will become the pope some day," he said.
Ouellet's promotion is part of a shuffle of the Vatican's top positions in what is being seen as an acknowledgment that efforts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe need a boost.
The announcement also says Monsignor Rino Fisichella has been chosen to head a new Vatican office to fight secularization and re-evangelize the West. Fisichella has been head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican’s top bioethics official.
The long-rumoured appointments were announced as the Pope wraps up key Vatican business before going on vacation for the rest of the summer at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome.
With files from The Associated Press
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