Vatican City, Jul 16, 2008 / 07:58 am
The Canadian Diocese of Sault Ste-Marie received a rare gift today from Pope Benedict XVI, not just one but two auxiliary bishops. The two bishops-elect are Father Noël Simard and Father Brian Dunn.
The appointment of the two priests as auxiliary bishops comes a little over a year after Bishop Robert Harris, the previous auxiliary of Sault Ste-Marie, was appointed to lead the Diocese of St. John in New Brunswick. The two bishops-elect will assist Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe in leading the faithful of the Diocese of Sault Ste-Marie.
Bishop-elect Noël Simard was born in St-Aimé des lacs, in the region of Charlevoix, Quebec, in 1947 and ordained to the priesthood in 1972.
After having worked in the education milieu, from 1972 to 1980, he studied at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, where he obtained a doctorate in theology in 1984. He then served as parish priest until 1988, when he started working as professor in religious studies and ethics at the University of Sudbury and later as professor of moral theology and bioethics at Saint Paul University, in Ottawa.