Both are priests within the archdiocese
OTTAWA (CCN)
Pope Francis selected two priests Oct. 25 to be auxiliary bishops of Quebec: Fathers Louis Corriveau and Marc Pelchat.
The appointments fill vacancies left in Quebec after the appointment of former auxiliary bishops to other sees in Canada. The new bishops will assist Cardinal Gerald Lacroix of Quebec, who greeted the announcement with joy on social media.
Bishop-elect Pelchat was the Quebec archdiocese’s vicar general and moderator of the curia until Oct. 25; Bishop-elect Corriveau was pastor of Saint-Bernardin-de-Sienne Parish in Riviere-a-Pierre.
Born on May 3, 1950, in Saint-Samuel du Lac Drolet (Gayhurst), in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Bishop-elect Pelchat was ordained a priest for the Quebec archdiocese on June 19, 1976, the year he obtained a Master’s degree in theology from Laval University.
After his ordination he served in several parishes, becoming pastoral animator for the pastoral region of Quebec. He then went on to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and received a doctorate in theology in 1986.
Since then he has taught at Laval University as part of the theology and religious studies faculty, becoming a full professor in 1997. Until 2013, he held the Monseigneur-de-Laval Chair of Theology and served three terms as dean of the faculty. He then became an adjunct professor.
Author of numerous publications on ecclesiology, the theology of ministry, and pastoral theology, Bishop-elect Pelchat was from 1986 to 1996 a member of the formation group for the Grand Seminaire de Quebec in Quebec City.
Bishop-elect Corriveau was born on March 23, 1964, in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Que., and ordained a priest for the Quebec archdiocese on June 16, 1990, after attending the Grand Seminaire de Quebec.
From 1990 to 1996, he was an assistant pastor of parishes in the Beauce region. He was the vocations director of the archdiocese from 1994 to 1995 and a member of the Grand Seminaire’s formation committee from 1996-1997.
In 1997 Bishop-elect Corriveau left for France to audit courses on spirituality at the Centre Sevres in Paris. Upon returning to Quebec in 1998, he returned to the Grand Seminaire, where he resumed formation work and spiritual direction until 2011, when he was named administrator of the parishes of Saint-Leonard, Sainte-Christine and Saint-Raymond in Portneuf.
Since 2009 he has been the spiritual director of the teams of Our Lady Canada, that focuses on strengthening the sacrament of marriage.
The two priests will be ordained bishops on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, the feast of the Quebec archdiocese, in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre basilica.
The Archdiocese of Quebec has 201 parishes and missions serving a Catholic population of 917,045, with 359 diocesan priests, 262 priests who are members of institutes of consecrated life, 89 permanent deacons, 2,596 religious sisters and brothers, and 59 lay pastoral workers.
