Quebec City, Canada, Apr 10, 2005 / 22:00 pm
While most of the world’s cardinals were in Rome this past weekend preparing for the conclave next week, Marc Cardinal Ouellet returned to Canada.
The youngest of three Canadian cardinals eligible to vote for the next Pope received special authorization from the College of Cardinals to return to his diocese and ordain two bishops. The ordinations had been planned for several months.
Cardinal Ouellet arrived in the Archdiocese of Quebec Saturday. He ordained Frs. Pierre-
André Fournier and Gilles Lemay to the episcopate at the basilica of St. Anne de Beaupré Shrine Sunday afternoon.
Though ill and hospitalized in February, Pope John Paul II had appointed the two priests to serve as the cardinal’s auxiliary bishops.
The 60-year-old cardinal, who was placed on a top-20 list of “papabili” by Vatican journalist and analyst John Allen, returned to Rome Monday morning.