Bishop Lebel's retirement.

In June 2000, Pope John Paul accepted the retirement of Bishop Robert Lebel, 75, of Valleyfield, Quebec, where he was named bishop in 1976.

Bishop Lebel was president of the CCCB from 1989 to 1991. During these two years, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney introduced abortion legislation hailed by the media as "moderate" and as "a satisfying compromise" when in reality it was straightforwardly pro-abortion. The 1990 CCCB brief asked for a number of changes, indicating they were mandatory as far as the CCCB was concerned. Yet when the P.M. flatly refused to make these emendations, the CCCB caved in and supported the proposed legislation, Bill C-43, after all.

The pro-life movement, on the other hand, especially the Catholics in it, recognized the legislation as neither moderate nor a compromise, but as a blank cheque to abortion-seeking women, and especially to abortion physicians, to go ahead without the danger of ever being prosecuted. It flouted Catholic teaching. The bill was fought to a standstill. In January 1991, the Canadian Senate halted Bill C43 with a tie vote of 43 to 43. Thereupon the Prime Minister declared the issue dead as far as his government was concerned.

The bill's passage would have meant a major Catholic theological scandal greater even than the scandal of September 1968, when the Canadian Conference of Bishops declined to follow Pope Paul's directions against birth control in the encyclical Humanae vitae.

Later on, Bishop Lebel complained that the task of answering the volume of mail during that time had been "frustrating and boring."