Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who has led the Vatican’s office for choosing bishops for over a dozen years, talks with Hannah Brockhaus, CNA Rome correspondent, and EWTN Rome Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser at the Dicastery of Bishops in Vatican City o.
Cardinal Ouellet led the Archdiocese of Québec, with its more than 1 million Catholics, until 2010, when he was brought back to the Vatican as prefect of the.
Pope Francis appointed the archbishop of Newark, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, a member of the Congregation for Bishops.
Pope Francis also named Cardinal Sérgio da Rocha, archbishop of São Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, a member of the same 25-member Vatican congregation.
As a member, Cardinal Tobin joins another American, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., was also a member of the Congregation for Bishops until aging out in November 2020 at the age of 80.
The Congregation for Bishops is responsible for overseeing the selection and appointment of bishops. It also deals with the erection and suppression of dioceses, oversight of bishops, and the preparation for and response to bishops’ ad limina visits to Rome.