New Bishops (Canada).

Ottawa--Since the spring several new bishops and a new papal nuncio have been appointed. The archdiocese of St. Boniface, Manitoba, gets Bishop Emilius Goulet, PSS (Sulpician), 68, as its new archbishop. Bishop Goulet specialized in Scripture which he taught in St. Boniface, Guatemala, Colombia and in Montreal. He also was French-sector general secretary of the CCCB in Ottawa for five years. He was the current rector of the Canadian Pontifical College in Rome. The French-language archdiocese of St. Boniface has 100,000 Catholics, and is served by 83 diocesan and 53 religious order priests, 19 deacons, 355 sisters and brothers in 102 parishes and missions.

A new bishop was named for the diocese of Valleyfield, Quebec, succeeding Bishop Robert Lebel who retired in June 2000. Bishop Luc Cyr, 48, has been Vicar-General of the diocese of St. Jerome since 1994. He holds a licence in moral theology from the Alphonsium (Redemptorist) Academy in Rome and has been associated with the Focolare movement for a quarter of a century. Valleyfield diocese has 185,000 faithful and is served by 77 diocesan and 26 religious order priests, 10 deacons, and 140 brothers and sisters.

At the end of July, a new bishop for Saskatoon, vacant since June of 2000, was appointed in the person of Albert LeGatt, 48, rector of the Cathedral of Prince Albert diocese, just north of Saskatoon. Bishop LeGatt was educated in St. Boniface and Quebec city. The diocese of Saskatoon has 90,000 faithful served by 42 diocesan and 57 religious-order priests, and 250 religious brothers and sisters, in 112 parishes and missions.

The new Papal Nuncio to Canada is Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 56. He succeeds Archbishop Paolo Romeo, who was in Canada less than two years and who has become Papal Nuncio to Italy. Archbishop Ventura holds a doctorate in literature and has been with the Vatican diplomatic service since 1978. His latest post was Papal Nuncio to Chile.

The bishop of Gaspe, Raymond Dumais, 51, has resigned from his diocese to which he was appointed in 1993. At the time pro-lifers objected to his appointment because he had just signed, together with some 1200 other middle-management Quebec clerical and lay establishment people, a protest against John Paul U's encyclical Veritatis splendor (Splendour of Truth), including the 1968 encyclical on the regulation of births, Humanae vitae.

The Pope has appointed Bishop Jean Gagnon, 61, Auxiliary in Quebec City, as apostolic administrator of the Gaspe diocese.