CORNWALL, Ontario, OCT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Canada’s episcopal conference elected as its president Bishop Pierre Morissette of Saint-Jérôme, Quebec.
Upon completion of the bishops’ plenary assembly Friday, Bishop Morissette will succeed Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg. The term for president of the conference is two years.
Bishop Morissette has previously served co-treasurer and vice president of the bishops’ conference.
The bishops also elected as vice president Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, Alberta, and as co-treasurers, Bishop Paul-André Durocher of Alexandria-Cornwall, Ontario, and Bishop Douglas Crosby of Corner Brook and Labrador, Newfoundland.
Year for Priests
Some 90 bishops are gathered in Cornwall to review pastoral activities of the past year and to discuss important questions and issues.
In keeping with the Year of the Priest announced by Benedict XVI, the bishops invited American theologian Richard Gaillardetz, the Murray/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo, Ohio, to speak on the priesthood.
On Tuesday, the conference press office reported, he spoke of «the relationship between the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of the baptized, by means of preaching and liturgical presidency.»
«It is under Eucharistic presidency of the priest,» Gaillardetz explained, «that the baptized are schooled in the priestly, which is to say paschal grammar of Christian love and sent in mission into the world.»
