Page "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec" Paragraph 32

On Tuesday, February 22, 2011, Vatican Information Service ( VIS ) and Catholic News Service ( CNS ), announced that Pope Benedict XVI had named the 53-year-old Bishop Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, until then an Auxiliary Bishop ( assistant bishop ) of Quebec ( since 2009 ), as the new Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec and Primate of Canada.

As Archbishop, he succeeds Marc Cardinal Ouellet, his former superior, who became the Prefect of one of the Roman Curia's most important administrative departments, the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, in July 2010.

Archbishop-elect Lacroix is a member of the Quebec-based Saint Pope Pius X Secular Institute.

Archbishop Lacroix was born in Saint-Hilaire-de-Dorset, Quebec, on July 27, 1957, the eldest son in a family of seven children.

At the age of 8, his family settled in Manchester, New Hampshire's largest city, where he attended the parochial elementary school of Saint Anthony of Padua and Trinity High School.

He studied one year at Saint Anselm College in neighboring Goffstown.

He joined the Pius X Secular Institute as a consecrated lay member in 1975, and made perpetual vows in 1982.

The same year, he was named secretary general of the institute.

He earned a master's degree in pastoral theology at Laval University, and from 1985 to 1987, directed the La Maison du Renouveau, a formation and Christian renewal center.

He was ordained a priest on October 8, 1988, in the parish of Notre-Dame-de-la-Recouvrance.

He was ordained to the episcopacy as Auxiliary Bishop of Quebec on May 24, 2009.