Bishop Guy Desrochers, who has led the Diocese of Pembroke, Ont., for the past three years, has been appointed as the new Archbishop of Moncton, N.B.
The Redemptorist succeeds Bishop Valery Vienneau, who has shepherded the Archdiocese since 2012. He turned 75 this year, the mandatory retirement age for bishops.
In a letter to the faithful of the Archdiocese, Bishop Desrocher said evangelization is close to my heart,” not only because Pope Francis “constantly speaks of the need for every pastor and for every Christian to collaborate in this task,” but because of his own conversion at the age of 24.
“I have since been inhabited by the urgency of evangelizing those who are outside the Church, those who have lost their faith as I had lost it during my adolescence, and those who have strayed from religious practice for all kinds of reasons.”
He ended the letter by saying he looks forward to his installation at Moncton’s Our Lady of Assumption Cathedral at a date still to be determined.
Bishop Desrochers was born in 1956 in Hull, Gatineau, Que., and was ordained a priest in 1989. He became Bishop of the Diocese of Pembroke in 2020.
