The most promising Pope candidates part V: Marc Ouellet

Cardinal Ouellet: The Cosmopolitan

As head of the Congregation of Bishops, Marc Ouellet (68) is kind of a staff manager at the Vatican. Pope to be “would be a nightmare,” Ouellet was once quoted. However, his chances are not bad at all.

Ouellet is a cosmopolitan who speaks also German, Portuguese, and Spanish in addition to French and English. Although the former Ratzinger students is well networked within the Curia, the widespread secularism in his home province of Quebec could speak against him as the new Pope.

Marc-Ouellet

In theological questions, he appears strict and conservative. Among other things he spoke out publicly against abortion and gay marriage. His supporters believe he would make a modest Pope and a deeply faithful defender of the Catholic identity. For his critics, as a Ratzinger student, he is to similar to Benedict XVI.

Ouellet was born in 1944, in Amos (Quebec), in a French-speaking family with eight children. He studied theology in Montreal, was ordained a priest in 1968 and became in 1972 the Sulpician Order. In Innsbruck, he continued his studies. On March 3 2001, Pope John Paul II. appointed the Canadian, Secretary of the Ecumenical Council at the Vatican. A year later he was appointed Archbishop of Quebec, and Cardinal in 2003. 2010, Ouellet became Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

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Life after Benedict

 From Secretary to Archbishop

georg-gaenswein
With the departure of Pope Benedict XVI., the question coms up, which turns the career of his private secretary Georg Gänswein will take. The 56-year old southern German could become an important link between the old and the new Pope or take over one of the large German dioceses as Archbishop.

Even during the last hours bevore his retirement, the always loyal Gänswein did not leave the Pope’s side. He will also spend the upcoming weeks in the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo with him, and after that move in the convent of Mater Ecclesiae in the Vatican with the former Pope, which is being renovated for Benedict.

Benedict XVI. had installed Gänswein as the Prefect of the Papal Household only in December and simultaneously appointed him Archbishop. The new Archbishop was assigned the titular see “Urbs Salvia” (Italian: Urbisaglia) in the central Italian region of Marche. Thus, Monsignor Gänswein moved a bit up the stairs in the Church hierarchy, what had been expected in Rome for a long time.

Soon servant of two Popes?

Gänswein could subsequently come in for a double function: He is supposed to work for the old and the to be elected new Pope. Gänswein would “remain Prefect of the Papal Household, and secretary of Benedict,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi announced just recently.

The role of the Prefect of the Papal Household is a key role for the daily routine of the Pope, as he is among other things responsible for the reception of heads of state. Continuity on this field seems to make sense But it holds room for speculation: If he stays as private secretary intimately connected with Benedict and also organizes a part of the everyday life of the new Pope, it is likely to raise questions about whether or not Benedict would be trying to influence the church through Gänswein.

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