SANCTIFYING OFFICE

The Eucharist

“The Eucharist belongs not simply to the bene esse but to the esse of the Church. The whole life, word and structure of the Church is eucharistic in its very essence,” Cardinal Marc Ouellet said in 2012.

In Ouellet’s view, “the Church’s Eucharistic tradition is so rich that it cannot be reduced to the celebration of the Eucharist alone. We need all the Church’s Eucharistic culture in order to keep all of its aspects in balance.” For example, the cardinal believes that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament “is a form of spiritual communion, which prolongs sacramental communion or replaces it when an obstacle hinders the reception of the sacrament.”

In addition to linking devotions to the Eucharist, the cardinal calls for a reexamination of the “pastoral practice of Christian initiation and a [reaffirmation of] the link between confirmation and the Eucharist . . . not only because of the limits of current pastoral practice, but out of fidelity to the profound significance of the sequence of the sacraments of initiation.”

The Priesthood

Ouellet thinks that both priest and people play an essential role in the Mass. He resists “the widespread tendency to relativize the role of the ordained minister in order to affirm the conscious and active participation of the assembly in Christ’s sacrificial offering.” More broadly, he thinks it essential to understand “the Trinitarian foundation both of the essential difference and of the existential correlation between the two modes of participation” in Christ’s priesthood:

“On the one hand, the common priesthood of the baptized expresses their participation in Christ’s divine sonship, which as such includes his mediation of the Spirit. On the other hand, the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood expresses Christ’s mediation insofar as he represents the Father. In virtue of this representation of the Father, Christ pours out the Spirit whom he receives from the Father in response to his, Christ’s, own sacrificial and Eucharistic offering. This is why he institutes the ministerial priesthood and the Eucharist simultaneously at the Last Supper.”

Following the acceptance of his resignation by Pope Francis in January 2023 but before he effectively stepped down from his curial positions, Cardinal Ouellet organized a Symposium on the “fundamental theology of priesthood” (February 17-19, 2023). The opening conference was attended by the Pope himself who encouraged priests not to be “professionals of the sacred.”

The Symposium included the presence of top curia officials (such as Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-Sik of the Congregation for the Clergy along with Cardinals Versaldi, Parolin, Semeraro, Farrell and Tagle). The Vatican’s liturgy chief, then-Archbishop Arthur Roche, presided over Ouellet’s own communication.

A professor of dogmatic theology, Michelina Tenace, was invited to speak at a round table at Symposium, where she said giving women a role as deacons in the primitive Church would be “too little.” She deplored the fact that certain ministries were no longer being “given” to women because of a “masculinist and clericalist drift within the Church” where “men and women are no longer afforded the same dignity as human beings.” Among the many communications, hers received the most enthusiastic applause.

Cardinal Ouellet chose brilliant and traditionally minded speakers to uphold the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas on the priesthood as well as priestly celibacy in the Latin Church. However, the overarching theme of the Symposium aimed at reflecting on the “vocation” of all the baptized, be they religious or not — the “common priesthood of the faithful” as propounded by Lumen Gentium.¹“Monde & vie” N°1008, February 2023

In an interview with the French Catholic television channel KTO.TV broadcast on February 5, 2023, Cardinal Ouellet made clear that he was organizing the Symposium as part of the “synodal searching of the Church” in order to “help the people of God discover that it is a priestly people.” He further stated: “When you think of the priesthood, you immediately think of priests, as if the priestly ministry were all there is to the priesthood. And this is not true, far from it, because the most important priesthood in the Church is the priesthood of the baptized, and the first… it is the first at the foundation. And if this priesthood is to live, then we need ministers who proclaim the word of God, who give the sacraments that support the commitment of Christians in the world.”

Approach to the Liturgy

Cardinal Ouellet usually celebrates a liturgy solemnly. According to Fr. Gilles Routhier, a Canadian theologian specializing in Vatican II, Ouellet “emphasized liturgical form, devoting considerable resources to preparing celebrations that [were] beautiful and well executed. Nothing [was] improvised or left to spontaneity. The missal [was] always used, even for the opening Sign of the Cross.” His choice of sacred music and singing included Latin chant and other classical forms. He did, however, celebrate Mass in New Brunswick with dancing altar girls.

Ouellet’s homilies are “short, carefully — even painstakingly — worked out, and often notable for their deep and rich content,” Routhier says. The cardinal has tended to give a spiritual commentary on the Word of God that was proclaimed, although he was not known for wholly avoiding mention of politics or world events, calling in 2008, for example, for a government and United Nations response to a looming world food crisis. In general, Ouellet was “in line with the understanding of the liturgy put forth by Pope Benedict: not the assembly celebrating itself, but the assembly celebrating God.”

Attitude toward the Extraordinary Form

As archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Ouellet supported Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, encouraging the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Fr. Routhier reports that, “unable to find a priest in the diocese who wanted to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary rite, and without any real demand for it, [the Cardinal] brought in a French priest of the Fraternity of Saint Peter.” The fraternity, to whom Ouellet later entrusted a parish, provided “Eucharistic celebrations following the Extraordinary Rite,” “catechetical instruction that involved the use of the Catechism of the Council of Trent,” and efforts “to create a demand for the Extraordinary rite and to interest other dioceses in it.” In the cardinal’s eyes, these actions properly responded to the “need of the population” and to the Holy Father’s intention in issuing his Motu Proprio on the Tridentine Mass.

Under Pope Francis’ watch, however, Cardinal Ouellet has shown less sympathy for the Traditional liturgy. According to “reliable sources” quoted by Diane Montagna, Cardinal Ouellet is said to have been a commanding force in the January 29, 2020 plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Together with Cardinals Parolin and Versaldi, they led the discussion in the direction of imposing severe restrictions on the traditional Latin rite which culminated in Traditionis Custodes that was published on July 16, 2021.

This change in Cardinal Ouellet towards the liturgy is supported by the liturgical shift of the French community of the teaching Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit, over which he exercised de facto governance. This community remained faithful to the traditional form of the Latin Mass from the start of the implementation of the Novus Ordo in 1969 but was recently mandated, out of “obedience” to “Rome,” gradually to implement regular Novus Ordo celebrations in all its institutions throughout the year, as well as the “daily” use of the Novus Ordo lectionary and the reformed liturgical calendar, despite the obvious frequent incompatibility between the traditional and the reformed liturgical calendar.

The Sisters were told by an authority of the “Apostolic See” whom they did not name that Masses should be celebrated following the Novus Ordo during the yearly retreat of all the members of their Institute in July 2024, except Sunday Mass. In its public statement on July 25, 2024, the Institute indicated that further Roman demands would be implemented as of the first Sunday in Lent 2024²“The Holy See (…) also requests that in our various houses, Mass be celebrated according to the Novus Ordo one week a month, with the exception of Sundays, with the Vetus Ordo remaining in use for the other three weeks and every Sunday. It specifies that the Mass readings for each day will be those of the current Roman lectionary, and that all the prefaces of the Paul VI Missal will be used for Masses according to the Vetus Ordo.”

In August 2024, Cardinal Ouellet gave three conferences at the Institute’s main community in Pontcalec (Brittany) during which, according to witnesses present, he told the Sisters that they “are the Church” and that the liturgical adjustments being made in their communities are turning them into a “vanguard” for the larger body of Catholics attached to the traditional rite. Two Sisters were then tasked with cobbling together a reform that would combine the reformed lectionary, calendar and prefaces of the Novus Ordo into all remaining celebrations according to the Vetus Ordo.

Whether Cardinal Ouellet was the person who imagined these changes is not clear but he has fully adopted their substance and personally and authoritatively presented them as the new rule to be followed by the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit.

However, Cardinal Ouellet did celebrate the Vetus Ordo in Pontcalec on August 15, 2024 – a Holy Day of Obligation in France.

Suspension of Collective Absolution

Beyond the Mass, the cardinal gave attention to other sacraments and devotions while in Quebec. He suspended the practice of collective absolution in the Archdiocese of Quebec in the face of painful pushback, including rebellion from his own priests that ultimately brought him to tears. He insisted on individual confession of sins as better realizing “communion with the Church, the truth of the sacrament, a sign of the Covenant, and personal encounter with Christ.” Also, Ouellet restored the “consecration of the diocese to the Holy Virgin at the Mass of the Immaculate Conception and processed through the streets with the Blessed Sacrament.”

Before and after moving to Rome in 2010, Ouellet served as a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Pope Francis did not renew his term in 2016.

GOVERNING OFFICE

Archbishop of Quebec

Among the governing offices Cardinal Ouellet has exercised, two have been central. First, he was archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010. From 2010 until 2023, he held the position of prefect for the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Bishops — one of the most important and influential positions in the Roman Curia, primarily responsible for the appointment of bishops. In both positions, he has made widely noticed decisions.

In 2002, one year after Ouellet’s episcopal ordination and six years after he came to Rome to teach and to serve in curial positions, Pope John Paul II named him archbishop of Quebec City and, therefore, primate of Canada. At that time, although 96 percent of the diocesan population was Catholic, Mass attendance was not much above 15 percent.³Fifteen percent was the reported rate of Mass attendance in the province in 2007. There seems to be little reason to think that the rate in the Archdiocese of Quebec was much higher in 2002. By comparison, Mass attendance in France was said to be under 10 percent, but in Greece and Spain around 20 percent and in Ireland, Italy, and Poland above 30 percent.

Cardinal Ouellet had grown up in Quebec before the Quiet Revolution, which rejected Catholicism, and he spent the first half of the 1970s (as well as much of the 1980s) in Colombia.⁴In the 1960s and ’70s, after centuries of Church dominance in Quebecois social and political life, dramatic changes ensued: “schools, hospitals, and social services were rigorously secularized; priestly vocations evaporated; Mass attendance plummeted; [and] the churches were emptied.” Nationalism is said to have taken the place of religion for many. Ouellet reports that while in the seminary, he had a desire to do some missionary work. At first, he was inclined to go to Asia, but after he was ordained as a Sulpician, he went to Colombia. He taught for six years there, at two seminaries. Later, he would return to Colombia for five more years as rector of one of those seminaries. — See “Biography of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, p.s.s.,” Society of the Priests of Saint-Sulpice, Province of Canada, 25 November 2010 Later, he spent six or seven years in Rome. Ouellet spent sixteen years, spread across four decades, in Quebec as it was becoming increasingly secularized, and afterward a few more years in Alberta. Thus, he was not entirely unfamiliar with his home province when he returned as archbishop in 2002.

Early in his tenure, Ouellet showed himself to be a sign of contradiction, rejected by the world and the mainstream media but beloved by faithful Catholics.

He began to criticize Quebec’s newly mandated Ethics and Religious Culture program for relativizing religion. He pushed for schools to keep catechetical education, claiming that Quebecois children were “grossly ignorant” of religion. “Kids ask who’s that guy hanging from the cross,” he said. “It’s clear that one hour a week of religious instruction in school isn’t enough to get the message across.” By pushing back against the curriculum change, Cardinal Ouellet distinguished himself from his brother bishops in Quebec, many of whom did not come around to his less accommodating position. That said, even the cardinal seemed to suggest that the decision was, ultimately, one for politicians and the people, not the Church, to decide. The curriculum is in place today, although some slight exemptions are permitted.

Defense of Marriage

In 2005, Cardinal Ouellet took a leading role in opposing the redefinition of civil marriage. In testimony before the Canadian senate, he described same-sex unions as “pseudo-marriage, a fiction.” Later, he testified that “the Church would refuse to baptize children of same-sex couples if both parents insisted on signing as co-fathers or co-mothers.” His Eminence also supported the “removal of MP Joe Comartin from some church activities — including altar serving and marriage-preparation courses — because of [Comartin’s] vote for same-sex ‘marriage.’” On the other hand, he did not block then-prime minister Paul Martin from receiving Communion. “We are a community of sinners,” the cardinal explained. ⁵Calgary Bishop Frederick Henry, although he seems not to have addressed the Communion question directly, seems to have been blunter than the cardinal in his criticism of Martin. Later, after comments relating to the Church’s role in Quebec met public backlash, Ouellet published an open letter apologizing for “errors [that] were committed” before 1960, including “anti-Semitism, racism, indifference to First Nations and discrimination against women and homosexuals.” The cardinal’s letter received some praise but was not warmly received by those claiming to represent some groups whom the letter mentioned. In Canada today, same-sex unions are recognized as civil marriages.

As mentioned in the previous section, around the same time that Ouellet was opposing the redefinition of civil marriage, he also sought to rein in the common practice of collective absolution. On February 9, 2005, he published a pastoral letter “confirming the orientation given before by [his] decision to suspend the practice of collective absolution in the diocese.” Data about the practice in 2010 or today is not readily available.

Handling Dissent, Secularism

Two months after his pastoral letter regarding collective absolution, Cardinal Ouellet issued another pastoral letter, this one calling on the Army of Mary to cease its activities. The Army of Mary was an association of Catholic believers founded by Marie-Paule Giguère in Quebec in 1971. The association was at first formally approved, but the archbishop of Quebec revoked that approval in 1987 after theologians investigated the group’s writings. In 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger identified “gravely erroneous” content in Army of Mary publications, including a false claim about the reincarnation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the person of Marie-Paule Giguère. Warnings notwithstanding, the Army of Mary did not retract its claims and instead sought to ordain new priests. In March 2007, Cardinal Ouellet issued a second warning to the group, and later that year, the pope approved a declaration of excommunication against the Army.

In 2009, Ouellet was asked whether the Church is persecuted in Quebecois society. “Of course, absolutely,” he answered and put the cause down to the Church’s telling “the truth that She received from God.” Indeed, Quebecois (and other) political and social leaders were outraged in 2010 when Cardinal Ouellet reasserted that abortion is a “moral crime,” not even justified by rape. In those same remarks, the cardinal called for greater support for pregnant women in crisis, but the abortion comments drew the focus and condemnation. A federal cabinet minister, for example, called His Eminence’s remarks “unacceptable.”

Ouellet’s tenure as archbishop of Quebec ended in 2010. In his seven years in office, the share of the population identifying as Catholic had declined by 8 percent. Mass attendance across the various dioceses of the province of Quebec was lower than in 2003.⁶Claiming a weekly Mass attendance rate of 11 percent in 2016 Similarly, monthly Mass attendance declined across the province between 2003 and 2010, albeit more slowly than before.

2008 International Eucharistic Congress

The following year, Cardinal Ouellet participated in the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress. The event brought more than twenty thousand pilgrims to Quebec City and featured among its speakers Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio. The future Pope Francis spoke on “The Eucharist, Gift of God for the Life of the World.” The congress took place during the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, and Cardinal Ouellet, perhaps optimistically, deemed it a “turning point” for the archdiocese.

Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops

The work of Congregation for Bishops noticeably changed when Cardinal Ouellet arrived. According to the former Canadian ambassador to the Holy See, Anne Leahy, Ouellet was “known as a very hard worker” and “a lot of people noticed when he took on the job” that “a slower rhythm of decisions on bishops” had been the norm. “When he came in, he cleared up a lot of the backlog. Decisions were made and things were done,” she said.⁷Appointments made between Cardinal Ouellet’s elevation to prefect and the election of Pope Francis include Ricardo Andrello (archbishop of Concepción to archbishop of Santiago, Chile), Michel Aupetit (priest to auxiliary bishop of Paris), Charles Chaput (archbishop of Denver to archbishop of Philadelphia), Blase Cupich (bishop of Rapid City to bishop of Spokane), William Lori (bishop of Bridgeport to archbishop of Baltimore), Charles Morerod (priest to bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg), Peter Ebere Okpaleke (priest to bishop of Ahiara, Nigeria), Angelo Scola (patriarch of Venice to archbishop of Milan), and Luis Antonio Tagle (bishop of Imus to archbishop of Manila). In 2012, Cardinal Ouellet described his view of what the Church needs in its bishops:

“Today, especially in the context of our secularized societies, we need bishops who are the first evangelizers, and not mere administrators of dioceses, who are capable of proclaiming the Gospel, who are not only theologically faithful to the magisterium and the pope but are also capable of expounding and, if need be, of defending the faith publicly.”

After the election of Pope Francis, bishop appointments slowed. In May 2013, controversy arose over Roberto Octavio González Nieves, archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Following reports that the archbishop had supported same-sex civil-union legislation and protected pedophile priests in his diocese, Cardinal Ouellet urged him to resign and take another position in the Church. The archbishop firmly denied the reports, claiming that they were politically motivated, and refused to resign in a letter leaked to the press.⁸ “Metropolitan Archbishop of San Juan of Puerto Rico, Letter to Marc Cardinal Ouellet of February 20, 2013,” LifeSite News, 20 February 2013 He remains archbishop of San Juan.

In October 2013, the Pope took the highly unusual and unorthodox step of elevating Ilson de Jesus Montanari, apparently a friend of the pope’s personal secretary, from a lower position in the congregation to the office of secretary. As early as 2014, there were reports that Pope Francis was not consulting the Congregation for Bishops regarding various important episcopal appointments, such as that of Bishop Cupich as archbishop of Chicago. Similar stories surfaced in 2016 from an authoritative Quebecois journalist. Cardinal Ouellet reports, however, that he continued to “have long meetings with Pope Francis every week to discuss the appointment of bishops and the problems that affect their governance.” He continued to offer thoughts about the bishop selection process.

In an interview published by Vatican News on April 26, 2021, Cardinal Ouellet pointed to these priorities:

“The Congregation for Bishops, unlike the Congregation for Saints, deals with the pastoral profiles of candidates who are not yet perfect, but of men on the way of perfection. What certainly counts in a priest proposed for the episcopate are the theological and cardinal virtues, the so-called principal human virtues. Above all, what is most important for this office is prudence. This should not be understood as reticence or timidity, but as balance between action and reflection while exercising a responsibility that requires great dedication and courage.”

Bishops and the Sexual Abuse Crisis

In light of the sexual abuse crisis, he has said:

“I think something more needs to be done within the Church, and with the formation of priests and certainly more prudence in the choice of bishops. On the question on vigilance, as you know, there is the motu proprio of Pope Francis “As a Loving Mother.” So, we need to address the issue of bad governance of bishops on these questions. This is already something that is implemented, so we are [at] the beginning of this implementation. We need to do some sort of criteria. We also need to coordinate among the various dicasteries of the Holy See to make sure that we work in the same direction with the same parameters, to apply this and be effective. But I think we will accelerate now, with the recent events, we will accelerate and we hope to develop something more effective.”

Two months after these comments, Cardinal Ouellet controversially issued a directive to prevent U.S. bishops from voting on proposals to address the sexual abuse crisis. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) leaders had met with the pope about this issue in September, at which time the pope suggested that they replace a highly anticipated annual meeting with a spiritual retreat. USCCB leaders met the pope again in October, reportedly about general matters.⁹Christopher White and Inés San Martín, “Confirmed: Pope to Meet USCCB Leaders on Monday,” Crux, 7 October 2018. Apparently, canon law did not require the USCCB to submit to the Vatican proposals to be considered at its meeting, but it did so on October 30. On November 6, Cardinal Ouellet indicated opposition to voting on the proposals.

In a letter dated November 11, the day before the USCCB meeting, the cardinal directed the USCCB not to vote on the proposals because the ideas needed to “properly mature.” The Vatican, he said in the letter, was not given enough time to study the proposals and potential conflicts with Church law.

Cardinal Ouellet himself has been targeted with accusations of sexual misconduct in his home country, Canada.

His name was publicly disclosed for the first time on August 16, 2022, when he appeared in the publication of a list of 88 priests or staff members of the Catholic Church accused of “sexual assault” (in his case, “non-consensual touching of a sexual nature”). The accusation came in the form of a class-action lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Québec and was authorized by the Superior Court of Québec.

In a press release issued on Thursday, August 18, the Vatican press office said that “there are insufficient grounds to open a canonical investigation for sexual assault by Cardinal Ouellet.” This followed the opening of an enquiry following the proceedings mandated by Vos Estis Lux Mundi when the allegations were first made.

The cardinal firmly denied the allegations the following day on August 19, calling them “defamatory” and stating that “should a civil investigation be opened, [he would] actively participate in it to make sure that the truth is established and that [his] innocence is recognized,” according to Le Monde which attributed the decision to to Pope Francis himself.

Cardinal Ouellet made good on his threat on the following December 13 when he sued his accuser “F” by name for “defamation” in order “to prove that allegations made against (him) were false and to restore (his) reputation and (his) honor.”

Questions were raised as to how the cardinal and his legal counsellors were able to obtain the name and address of the accuser, a pastoral worker named Pamela Groleau (who went public about the case in January 2023); in particular the ombudswoman of the Archdiocese of Montreal slammed a “breach of confidentiality” on the part of the curia of Québec. In a statement to the Canadian media, she complained of “intimidation” tactics on the part of the Archdiocese and having been “backed into seizing the civil courts” after internal proceedings within the institution only led to “attempts to silence” her.

Days after Pamela Groleau went public, Pope Francis accepted the cardinal’s resignation on January 30, 2023. She complained in particular that her complaint had been heard and had been processed by a priest whom she discovered to be personal friend of Ouellet, Father Jacques Servais.

In July 2023, Groleau obtained support in her civil lawsuit from two other women who claimed to have been the objects of unwanted sexual touching in 1992 and in the early 2000’s respectively.

A further formal complaint to the Vatican came from a woman known as “Marie” whose internal proceedings similarly ended with a decision by “the Pope” to set it aside after a preliminary enquiry. This was also made public by Groleau in July 2023.

Responding to Archbishop Viganò

A key moment of Cardinal Ouellet’s tenure as prefect for the Congregation for Bishops was his response to open letters published in the fall of 2018 by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

In a stinging critique of Viganò’s letters, Ouellet did not contest that Benedict XVI had responded to abuse allegations against Theodore McCarrick. Instead he qualified his response by saying they were not “sanctions.” He made no comment about the central discussions between Viganò and Pope Francis that Viganò said occurred during private meetings on June 23 and October 10, 2013. He also expressed doubt that Pope Francis would have remembered what any particular nuncio said on June 21, 2013, when Viganò met the pope in Rome, along with all the Church’s nuncios. Finally, Cardinal Ouellet did not deny that Cardinal McCarrick had any influence in the Vatican but suggested that the former cardinal had less influence on Pope Francis than either McCarrick or Viganò supposed.

Whereas some were taken aback by the vehemence of Ouellet’s letter to a prelate whom many saw as courageously criticizing a grave injustice at the highest levels of the Church, friends of Ouellet said the episode showed Ouellet’s deep loyalty to the pope and his instinct to hold a position on a team. His episcopal motto Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One) signifies that unity and communion mean a great deal to him and that, according to his friends, he has a “horror” of anything tending toward schism or division in the Church — hence his disdain for Viganò’s testimonies, or at least the perceived effect they might have. Those who know Ouellet say he would have seen them as an act of disloyalty to Francis, or what Ouellet himself called an “open and scandalous rebellion” which is why it angered him, even though Viganò saw his criticisms of the pope as services to the truth, and ultimately acts of charity and loyalty to the Petrine Office. For Ouellet, his loyalty to the pope is the sine qua non of being Catholic, but it is a principled loyalty, driven not by personality worship but by reverence for the office.

Approach to the Pachamama Statues

During the Amazon synod in October 2019, Ouellet allowed indigenous groups to use his titular church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where various questionable ceremonies took place and where fertility symbols, or pagan Pachamama statues, were present. He made no public expression of disapproval of the use of the church in this way. Instead, he said the veneration of these symbols during various synod activities “did not bother me,” adding that he did not know the Amazonian culture “sufficiently well to say what is the meaning of those symbols.” In spite of people prostrating themselves in front of the statues, he said that to say such actions were akin to “adoration of idols is an exaggeration.”

Approach to the German “Synodal Path”

In November 2022, the German bishops gathered in Rome for their “Ad Limina visit.” While there, they attended a meeting with the Heads of some Dicasteries of the Roman Curia at the Augustinianum Institute in Rome to reflect together on the ongoing German Synodal Path which campaigned for, and implemented, change on issues such as women priests, intercommunion, the blessing of same-sex couples, on the basis of “Listening to the People of God.”

Cardinal Marc Ouellet and several others on this occasion expressed “with frankness and clarity their concerns and reservations regarding the methodology, contents and proposals of the Synodal Way.” However, according to Vatican News, “At the same time, participants all agreed that, despite their different positions, ‘they are on a journey with all the holy and patient People of God’.”

Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit 

Cardinal Marc Ouellet played a significant role in the 2020 apostolic visitation of the traditional Order of Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit. This visit was allegedly carried out in accordance with a specific mandate from Pope Francis. Ouellet led the visitation and once completed, he signed the dismissal decree for Sister Marie Ferréol (Sabine Baudin de la Valette) in 2020. Ouellet’s involvement in the case led to legal consequences, with the French court fining him along with the religious community and the other apostolic visitors for the wrongful dismissal of Sister Marie Ferréol.

Cardinal Ouellet, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, had no obvious authority over the Institute. But one aspect linking Ouellet to the Dominican Institute of “Pontcalec,” the name of its mother house, was his profound ongoing spiritual and intellectual friendship with one of the Sisters, Marie de l’Assomption, whom he met at Saint-Wandrille during a theology session and with whom he shared an affinity with the teachings of Henri de Lubac.

Sister Ferréol, who was reportedly expelled from the community for her “bad frame of mind,” was known to be intellectually opposed to the cardinal’s friend, Sister de l’Assomption, and was instead faithful to the very traditional mindset of the community’s founder.

Before her expulsion, Ferréol had been kept in ecclesiastical “prison” for some six months at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes, at first without anyone being allowed to know of her whereabouts. Two years later came Ouellet’s definitive expulsion of Ferréol from the community and she was barred from any kind of religious life.

Being an “administrative” decision on the part of Rome, she was given no canonical judiciary recourse and was never acquainted with the precise reason of her expulsion. Cardinal Ouellet stated that he was implementing the will of Pope Francis.

Since that time, at least six other prominent members of the community obtained their exclaustration. Two were also sent away roughly at the same time by decision of the Visitors and Cardinal Ouellet.

Having been left without material means and practically no support from the Institute where she had taught for over thirty years, including social security, and having been refused canonical recourse in Rome following a final decision said to have been made by the Pope, Sister Ferréol-Sabine de La Valette decided to file a lawsuit at a civil tribunal in France, where she sued the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit, Cardinal Ouellet and the Apostolic Visitors for damages.

On April 3rd, 2024, the civil court of Lorient in Brittany, France, convicted Cardinal Ouellet in his absence as well as the other defendants for having expelled the nun “without reason.”  The court described her expulsion as “infamous and vexatious,” and said it was executed without her having committed “the slightest offense,” and on the basis of “non-established motives.” The court said she was “sent back to lay life without mercy.”

The tribunal ruled that Cardinal Ouellet’s title to investigating the Sister had not been proved: “No special mandate from the Pope has been produced, and it was not within the competence of Ouellet — then prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops — to act with regard to a religious community.” The tribunal further noted that none of the acts concerning Sister Marie Ferréol are signed by the Pope, but on the contrary are signed by Ouellet and his secretary.”

In a statement, the Sister’s lawyer Adeline le Gouvello noted that Cardinal Ouellet was found to have shown a “lack of impartiality” because of his friendship with another “whose positions were notoriously opposed” to those of Ferréol, the ruling stated.

The expelled Sister was awarded over $200,000 in compensation, the payment of which Cardinal Ouellet, who did not attend the hearings, did not contribute to. The decision has been appealed.

Following the ruling, the Holy See sent a “Note Verbale” to the Embassy of France to the Holy See, noting that Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who at the time of the event was Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, “never received any summons from the Lorient Tribunal.” According to Adeline le Gouvello, the summons was duly sent by the official paths but was not served to the Cardinal in due time by the Italian authorities.

The Vatican hit back by saying the court’s decision, about which it said it had not been formally notified, was in “serious violation” of religious freedom. “A potential ruling from the Lorient Tribunal,” said Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, “could raise not only significant issues concerning immunity, but if it ruled on internal discipline and membership in a religious institute, it might have constituted a serious violation of the fundamental rights to religious freedom and freedom of association of Catholic faithful.”

However, the court’s judgement was not an incursion into canonical law; the tribunal gave its ruling in view of the bilateral contract by which the Sister was bound to the religious Order. The court stated that the latter had not complied with their obligations deriving from the Sister’s contract with the community and the community’s statutes. “The religious community (…) could not ignore canon law, nor the general rules of law relating to respect for the rights of the defense, in addition to the fundamental rights of the person, when faced with a serious decision impacting the private life of a Sister of the community,” the court ruled.

TEACHING OFFICE

Priestly Celibacy

Cardinal Ouellet once praised Pope Benedict for shifting the focus from “ecclesiastical questions or moral questions to fundamental questions.” The cardinal holds that the Eucharist is central to Catholic life and that priests are necessary for the celebration of the Mass. Here it is worth adding that Ouellet has emphasized the importance of priestly celibacy for Latin-Rite priests. According to Ouellet:

“The Church tradition of celibacy and abstinence of the cleric did not arise just at the beginning of the 4th century as something new, but rather, was — both in the East and the West — the confirmation of a tradition that goes back to the apostles. It is important to understand that this need was for both celibacy and the ban against marriage as well as also the perfect abstinence for those who were already married.”

Cardinal Ouellet acknowledges priestly celibacy as “not a dogma but a rule of life,” and said that it is “conceivable for the Latin Church” to “associate another form of life, marriage, to the pastoral ministry.” Still, he considers sacerdotal celibacy “a gift for the Church” that is founded “in the person of Christ,” and he notes “the supreme authority of the Church, which has preferred until now, for serious reasons, to maintain the validity of the law on obligatory ecclesiastic celibacy.”

Shortly before the Amazon synod in October 2019, Ouellet published a book arguing that in the face of challenges, the Church should not seek quick solutions but, rather, should deepen its understanding of the tradition of priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite. In the introduction, he had some harsh words about synod politics, and he had joined other cardinals in fighting to prevent the concept of viri probati — the ordination of married men of proven virtue — from going forward.

Homosexuality in the Seminary

Asked in 2008 whether “homosexuals” are to be admitted to seminary, His Eminence called the question “delicate” and pointed to Pope Benedict’s 2005 document prohibiting men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies to enter the seminary, apparently affirming it.

The Role of Women and Ordination of Women

The public record of the cardinal’s teaching on the ordination of women is similar. In 2008, Ouellet cited John Paul II as having reached a “definitive” conclusion on the question. Just before the election of Pope Francis, he repeated that “ordained ministry” is not to consist of women, and in October 2018, he reaffirmed that position, opposing the “pretension” on behalf or on the part of women “to that which is for ministers in the sacerdotal sense.”

Cardinal Ouellet has been relatively outspoken in his support of greater roles for women in the Church. In 2013, referring to “what is already done in the life of the Church,” he said if one visits “many dioceses,” what one sees is “a majority of women working in key positions.” He added that this “is open to further development.” In 2018, he called for further integration of women into the Church, “accelerating the processes of struggle against the ‘machista’ culture and clericalism, to develop respect for women and the recognition of their charisms as well as their equal integration in the life of society and the Church.” In particular, he has suggested that the Church needs to involve more women in the formation of priests. ¹⁰His Eminence seems not to have remarked publicly and directly on the specific role of women in forming their children. He has, however, held up the Holy Family as “a living ideal.” He has promoted the family as the most precious inheritance of the Christian tradition and has extolled Our Lady of Guadalupe’s example of bearing a child in the womb: “Mary is reminding us that the word of God took flesh in the womb of a woman.” He repeated his call in April 2020, saying that “the experience of collaborating with women on an equal level helps the candidate [for priesthood] to envisage his future ministry and how he will respect and collaborate with them.” He said such collaboration would also help prevent the risk of a priest’s living his relationship with women “in a clerical way.”

He repeated in 2021 that men and women should not be “placed completely on the same level from the point of view of ministry, because of the symbolic scope to the sacramental roles… Christ is a man and the Church is feminine, the priest, who must represent Christ, should be in semantic and symbolic coherence, and that is the reason why the ministry that consists in representing Christ the Spouse is reserved to a man.”

He was speaking as the Pope’s delegate to the Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean that took place in Mexico from November 21-28 2021.

However, he added that “the charisms that belong to women need to be reinforced” and must be “given space, listening and opportunities.” They are “extraordinary catechists,” he said and “can also be chancellors of a diocese, they can also defend causes, they can participate in communications, in administration, they can also hold very important positions in a diocese or in a parish.” Ouellet also for “a much more fundamental synodal reform than giving the same roles to women as to men.”

In a similar vein, in an interview published by l’Osservatore Romano on April 25, 2020, the cardinal had called for a “radical change” in the way priests interact with women: “Having women on seminary formation teams as professors and counselors,” he said, “would also help a candidate interact with women in a natural way, including in facing the challenge represented by the presence of women, attraction to a woman.”

Another activity that the cardinal would ask of women — and men, too — is evangelization:

“To bear witness to Jesus Christ . . . to announce the Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ . . . which is bringing salvation to the whole world, even to those who do not know (they are included in what he did for the whole humanity), . . . we are called to announce that. . . . It is the good news, and people have the right to know, you know, and to rejoice about that, and to embrace this mystery of faith and salvation. To the extent that we are aware of the gift, we are committed to give it to others  to communicate what has been received. Otherwise, we really risk losing the gift, if we do not share it.”

Ouellet praises “old and new communities of consecrated life, ecclesial movements, the lay apostolate, and everything St. Paul describes in his non-exhaustive list of charisms.” In youth outreach, His Eminence would first “express the trust of the Church in young people” and second, reflect on education “because the young people need models, witnesses, [of] encouragement, but also of parameters, of correction, to go ahead.”

Furthermore, he said “if we want young people to make the choice of following Jesus, they must learn who Jesus is: the beloved who comes to meet us to make us discover the Father through him, in the communion of the Holy Spirit.”

Having reached the age of 80 and now no longer a “cardinal elector,” Ouellet has doubled down on the theme of  “charism.”

In September 2024, at the presentation of his new book entitled Word, Sacrament, Charism: Risks and Opportunities of a Synodal Church, he commended the upcoming Synod on Synodality: “The Church is experiencing a moment of listening to the Holy Spirit,” he said, noting that “some were confused” while “others are already disappointed by the few tangible results that were achieved in the past three years.”

He suggested that the answer would be “to reawaken the interest in charisms in the Church, but they often don’t find the space to develop because they are not valued and recognized,” in a context of “clerical culture.”

Ouellet argued in favor of loosening the grip on charismatic groups, despite the fact that many of these, while attracting large numbers of faithful, have been marred by reports of abuse of power or sexual abuse, in particular on the part of their founders.

He made clear that his target was wider than the well-known charismatic movements within the Church. The groups he hopes to see thriving and evangelizing are “not just the visible and spectacular ones, but also humble and discreet charisms of service: listening, welcoming, compassion, visiting the sick and the poor, catechists and reconciliation operators.”

For this reason he praised the Synod on Synodality’s inclusion of laypeople and lower clergy, adding: “We still have a lot more listening to the people of God to do.”

Vocations

In November 2020, Cardinal Ouellet set up the Center for Research and Anthropology of Vocations (CRAV), independent from the Holy See, with its headquarters located in Saint-Cloud near Paris. The center aims to “raise awareness about each vocation’s dignity and complementarity within civil society and to serve it.” It sees the priesthood, consecrated life and marriage as the three possible “vocations” Its scientific committee includes Ouellet’s friend, the Dominican Sister Marie de l’Assomption. Her brother, Louis de Vigouroux d’Arvieu, is the Center’s treasurer. Former members are also Ouellet’s friends: Father Jacques Servais and Michelina Tenace.

Holy Scripture

To make known the trinitarian God, Ouellet turns to Holy Scripture. In the cardinal’s eyes, “it is indispensable for the Church to hold to the real facts and events.” He praised Pope Benedict for clarifying “the historical foundation of Christianity,” deepening our “understanding of the events of the Last Supper, the meaning of the prayer of Gethsemane, the chronology of the Passion and, in particular, the historical traces of the Resurrection.” ¹¹The cardinal applauded the pope, for example, for “exclud[ing] . . . absurd theories” that “declare as compatible the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ and his corpse’s remaining in the sepulcher.” For the cardinal, “Scripture is a historical assertion and a canonical reference that are necessary for prayer, the life and the doctrine of the Church.” Indeed, it is “thanks to the Bible [that] humanity knows it has been called upon by God; the Spirit helps it to listen and welcome the Word of God, thus becoming the ‘Ecclesia,’ the community assembled by the Word.”

Islam

Notwithstanding the cardinal’s affirmation of Tradition and emphasis on the trinitarian nature of God, he holds that the Muslim faithful are “rooted in the Biblical tradition” and “believers in the one God.” ¹²“According to the Revelation of Holy Scripture (1 Jn 4:16), the divine nature is nothing other than the divine Love subsisting in three absolutely correlative Persons.” Ouellet holds that “we cannot stereotype Islam as a religion of terrorism, for example. We must move toward a climate of fraternity.” On the other hand, the cardinal does not always shy away from distinctions about groups claiming to be religions. For example, in 2010, he called for Quebec to distinguish “sects” such as Scientology from “historic religions” such as Christianity and, presumably, Judaism and Islam, among others. In Cardinal Ouellet’s eyes, historic religions should stand together as “allies in the defense of human life and in the assertion of the social importance of religion” in the face of secularism.

Effects of Secularism

Secularism is dominant in Quebec. Responding to it, Cardinal Ouellet defended the Church’s right to remain present in areas from which society sought to exclude it, especially, although not exclusively, in education. For example, in 2010, the cardinal “sadly” noted that the “total rejection of our Catholic identity leads more and more to a total mess in education.” In his view, “the byproducts are well known: fragile couples, broken families, massive abortions, soon euthanasia, suicides at alarming rates, evident school dropouts, work seven days out of seven, etc., etc. Long live a Quebec free from religion!”

Right-to-Life Issues

The cardinal has stated plainly that euthanasia, abortion, and breaking a marriage are wrong. He asserted, for example, “the honor or the misfortune of defending the dignity of the human person unconditionally and without compromise” during Canada’s debate over euthanasia and when he opposed abortion, also of a child conceived through rape. (“The child is not responsible for how he was conceived, it is the aggressor who is responsible,” he told reporters. “We can see him (the child) as another victim.”) In Ouellet’s view, “human dignity is not in the least diminished when a person is not yet born, is ill, handicapped, or dying.” From these and other public comments, it seems that Ouellet recognizes that the indispensable foundations of political society include human rights grounded, at least in their essence, in absolute moral norms.

During the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Ouellet praised Humanae Vitae. He noted the connection between the Eucharist and respect for human life. “The consequences of the culture of contraception,” he said, “are visible in the culture with abortion and with the question of marriage.” Again in 2018, while interpreting Amoris Laetitia, he sounded the same theme, connecting the use of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and “the pseudo-marriage of same-sex couples” as part of what St. John Paul II called “the culture of death.”¹³Card. Marc Ouellet, “Let Us Understand ‘Amoris Laetitia,’” Abouna, 9 November 2017

These issues are not the only questions of justice that Ouellet addresses. For example, he has preached on “migrants and refugees to whom we do not remain indifferent despite the temptation to ignore or repress them so as not to be disturbed in our peace or comfort.” ¹⁴His Eminence distinguishes between the terms “migrant” and “refugee,” but it is not clear that he thinks any distinction in policy is permissible or desirable. Indeed, as archbishop of Quebec, His Eminence went so far as to give $20,000 of his own money, plus $20,000 from the archdiocese, to start the Cardinal Marc Ouellet Foundation to integrate immigrants and refugees into Quebecois society. ¹⁵The cardinal seems particularly fond of Catholic immigrants from Haiti and Latin America who “help us to remember our own roots.” “When they come to Canada or the U.S., they help to restore or save a Christian culture . . . they must bring and keep their religious identity, and enrich us with their faith.” “There will not be a radiant and missionary Church in America without a solidarity that is more concrete and creative between the North and the South of the continent.” The status of the Cardinal Marc Ouellet Foundation after 2008, when it had a $312,000 endowment, is not readily available.

MARRIAGE, COMMUNION, AND AMORIS LAETITIA

Cardinal Ouellet’s most complicated exercise of the teaching office has been his public comments on marriage and admittance to Holy Communion.

Prior to the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family, His Eminence published an article in opposition to the distribution of Holy Communion to those who were divorced and civilly “remarried.” In 2015, the cardinal continued to be critical of this practice but after the publication of Amoris Laetitia, he tried to reconcile the document with the Church’s traditional teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

Cardinal Ouellet’s 2014 article in Communio begins with the nature of a sacrament. He holds that a sacrament is both a “means of salvation” and also a “sign and mystery of communion.” In other words, sacraments are not only “responses to anthropological needs,” but also “organic articulations of a body.” In this latter sense, the Church’s performance of a sacrament is a missionary sign to the world of what the Church is. Furthermore, sacraments are “articulations” of the “nuptial relationship between Christ and the Church.”

The cardinal applies his general discussion of sacraments to the particular nature of sacramental marriage. Marriage between the baptized is “an authentic participation of the spouses in the very love of Christ for the Church.” It realizes not only “the natural ends” of marriage — “the unity of the spouses” and “the procreation and education of children” — but is also a visible manifestation of the “invisible reality of divine Love, committed in a covenant relationship with the humanity in Jesus Christ.” In this sense, a sacramental marriage is truly a “domestic church” — a visible expression of Christ’s union with the Church. Furthermore, because Christ’s love abides in a sacramental marriage, and this love is “indestructible and victorious over every fault,” a sacramental marriage cannot be broken. “Such a possibility would directly contradict the irreversible commitment of Christ the Bridegroom in the first union.”

In this light, Ouellet thought in 2014, “the Church has always maintained a limit with regard to divorced-and-‘remarried’ Catholics, without excluding them from the community, from participation in the eucharistic assembly or from community activities.” That is, even if divorced-and-“remarried” persons have had “an authentic conversion,” have “repented of their faults,” and have “obtained forgiveness,” if they “are incapable of abandoning their new union,” the Church “does not authorize sacramental absolution and Eucharistic Communion,” for the “sacramental reason” that the Church dare not “betray the truth that is the foundation of the indissolubility of marriage.” ¹⁶ In the cardinal’s view, “Maintaining such a limit is not equivalent to declaring that these couples live in mortal sin or that they are denied Holy Communion for this moral reason.” He does not give further detail, but he likely means that, by refusing to authorize Communion, the Church does not speak to the subjective imputability of the gravely sinful act of divorce and civil remarriage. From the language quoted in this footnote and in the accompanying body text, one might think that the cardinal would exclude from Communion even divorced-and-“remarried” couples who are abstaining from sexual acts (see Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2015], 169-70). Nothing in the text alone would preclude that reading, but it would be surprising because the cardinal has carefully studied Familiaris Consortio, which seems to allow such an exception, albeit only if there are serious reasons not to satisfy the obligation to separate (FC 84). Possibly, Ouellet cuts out that exception to strengthen the clarity of his expression of opposition to making further exceptions to the sacramental discipline. According to Ouellet, “the reason for this limit is not first moral; it is sacramental.” By this, he seems to mean that something other than the moral character of the specific divorced-and-“remarried” individuals determines the wrongful character of distribution of Communion to them. That said, “the core of sacramental grace can be communicated to these couples in the form of ‘spiritual communion,’ which is not a pale substitute for sacramental Communion, but rather a dimension of the latter.”

In 2014, His Eminence noted only one type of “exceptional case” in past Church teaching on this matter. That is, if the “juridical path for a recognition of nullity is impossible but pastoral conviction of such nullity exists,” it may be possible for such persons, although apparently divorced and “remarried,” to receive “absolution and sacramental Communion.” Ouellet avoided giving specific examples of such exceptional cases because “much work would have to be done to give examples, specify the criteria and procedures, and determine the conditions and responsibilities for the pastoral decisions these imply.” He was keen, however, to distinguish this approach from “shifting the resolution of such cases into the ‘private forum.’” ¹⁷In a 1998 article republished in 2011, Cardinal Ratzinger had asserted a similar position and in 2017, Cardinal Müller reasserted this view and interpreted Amoris Laetitia to accord with this position.

Thus stood Cardinal Ouellet’s teaching about marriage and Eucharistic Communion in 2014. In 2015, the cardinal republished in English a 2007 book chapter critiquing Cardinal Kasper’s penitential path for those who were married and then divorced and “remarried.” ¹⁸See, e.g., Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love. Then, in 2016, Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia, which Cardinal Ouellet has interpreted in at least two speeches and one article.¹⁹“Verbatim of Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s Conference with Canadian Bishops,” Présence, 25 September 2017; Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017. The cardinal reads Amoris Laetitia not to contradict previous Church teaching or the positions he advanced in 2014 and 2015.

According to Ouellet, Amoris Laetitia accords with previous Church teaching. The document “does not distance itself from [Veritatis Splendor] with respect to the question of determining the objective morality of human acts and of the fundamental role of conscience as a ‘witness’ to the divine law inscribed in the sacred depths of each person.”²⁰Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

Rather, Amoris Laetitia complements Veritatis Splendor by “noting the way this conscience can be clouded by factors that influence one’s knowledge of moral norms and one’s will to follow them, thus, according to Church doctrine, affecting the subjective imputability of wrong acts.” ²¹His Eminence cites the Catechism in holding that subjective imputability may be “nonexistent.” Similarly, Ouellet reads Amoris Laetitia not to contradict, but rather to “extend the openings initiated by His Holiness John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio.” According to the cardinal, the “novelty” of Amoris Laetitia is not contrary to past Church teaching.²²Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

Nor does it seem that Ouellet judges Amoris Laetitia contrary to his own interpretation of Church teaching in 2014 and 2015, when he deemed episcopal conviction of nullity the sole legitimate exception to the rule that persons who are divorced and civilly “remarried” not receive Eucharistic Communion. In the cardinal’s view, although Amoris Laetitia allows that “‘in certain cases’ divorced-and-‘remarried’ persons might receive the help of the sacraments,” still, Amoris Laetitia “does not give a clear and precise answer to [which cases], other than to maintain the traditional discipline in a way that is open to exceptional cases.”²³Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

Particularly, Amoris Laetitia “does not settle” whether those who express to a pastor a conscientious judgment that they are not in a state of mortal sin, “in certain cases,” might be allowed to receive Eucharistic Communion or “might be left to their conscience the freedom to choose.” At no point does Cardinal Ouellet hold necessary under Amoris Laetitia that new exceptions to the sacramental discipline against Eucharistic Communion for persons who are divorced and civilly “remarried” be recognized.

That said, the cardinal reads Amoris Laetitia to “broaden [the] cases” in which “a collaborative decision between a pastor and a couple in the internal forum, overseen in some fashion by the bishop of the place, might provide access in certain cases to the help of the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist.” Furthermore, he thinks it may well be that such help [of the sacraments] might be granted for a period where individuals discern that this help is necessary for them in conscience. The same individuals may then give these up later in their journey, not out of rigorism but as a free choice, by virtue of the fact that, with competent and respectful help, they have arrived at a better understanding that the help of the sacraments for their growth in grace does not resolve the contradiction between their public state of life and the sacramental meaning of Eucharistic communion.²⁴Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

If Cardinal Ouellet still thought that the help of Eucharistic Communion may be provided only in cases of moral, but not juridical, certainty of the first marriage’s nullity, it seems unlikely that something would change such that “the same individuals may then give [Communion] up.”²⁵Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

In contrast is the case of those who have “subjectively repented and may desire deeply to make a change that is compatible with the truth of the sacrament, for example by making the decision to live as ‘brother and sister’” — but to whom “this does not seem possible.” Such persons would, in Ouellet’s eyes, have reason to give up the sacrament of Eucharistic Communion. Thus, such persons may be those whom the cardinal now thinks, under Amoris Laetitia, may be granted Communion “for a period.” Indeed, although he is “personally hesitant about this approach,” he explicitly allows that “such openness may be discerned in certain cases in the internal forum.”²⁶Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017

This seems quite different to Cardinal Ouellet’s view in 2014 when he wrote:

“It seems to me of capital importance that exceptional cases involve only the sphere of a conviction of nullity, and exclude that of a real conversion after the failure of a first, sacramental marriage. There is no conversion that can change the primary effect of the sacrament, the conjugal bond, which is indissoluble because it is linked to the witness of Christ himself. To act otherwise would mean to profess the indissolubility of marriage in word and to deny it in practice, thereby sowing confusion in the People of God, especially in those persons who have sacrificed opportunities to rebuild their life out of fidelity to Christ.”

Two years later, His Eminence appeared now to be “personally hesitant” about what he previously thought “of capital importance” not to be done, lest the witness of Christ Himself be contradicted.

In a lengthy October 2016 question and answer session about Amoris Laetitia on the French Catholic television channel KTO.TV, with a panel including diocesan workers, pastoral agents, priests and a number of civilly remarried divorcees whose religious marriage had received a judgment of nullity, Cardinal Ouellet showed a similar lack of clarity.

He noted that during the Synod on the Family, the participants “wanted to be faithful to doctrine but at the same time to adapt to the conditions in which families live today, (…) to invite the Church to a positive vision on each and every situation.”

He added that he had, on a personal level, been “obliged to take steps to understand well what the Holy Spirit was bringing about in the Synodal Assembly. “I believe we reached a good result which is reflected in this document and is nuanced, very nuanced, and even that requires interpretation.”

He recalled the indissolubility of the sacramental bond, but insisted that Amoris Laetitia does not “change” this at all. He suggested that the divorced and civilly remarried who have the “subjective conviction” that they are not in a state of mortal sin, should have recourse to “spiritual communion.”

He added that on a personal level, the “limit” he applies to footnote 351 of Amoris Laetitia, which suggests the sacraments can be accessed in some cases by the divorced and remarried, is that of the “validity of the sacramental bond.” When there is “certainty” on that point, “I don’t think the opening can go any further.” But there are “uncertain cases,” argued the cardinal. “When that certainty is not there, it becomes possible,” he said.

He concluded:

“I was referring earlier to the laborious synodal process that lasted over two years. I don’t think its implementation will be any easier. That’s why pastors and communities need to re-establish a dialogue in today’s world. The total or primary objective, if you like, of the synod is to re-establish a pastoral dialogue, and not simply to say, well, “We have norms. You’re outside the norm. Too bad. Let’s move on.” We need to rebuild fraternity, and there are opportunities for communion, I’d say, participation in the life of the Church. And we really need to create a new climate. I think it’s remarkable what the Pope has done, what he’s succeeded in getting across, if you like, through his own witness and in the synodal assembly, and that’s now being passed on. It’s also getting through to the hearts of pastors, starting with bishops and then priests, so that this process brings people closer together, even people in extreme, peripheral or particular situations. So I think this is good news.”

• 1
  “Monde & vie” N°1008, February 2023
• 2
  “The Holy See (…) also requests that in our various houses, Mass be celebrated according to the Novus Ordo one week a month, with the exception of Sundays, with the Vetus Ordo remaining in use for the other three weeks and every Sunday. It specifies that the Mass readings for each day will be those of the current Roman lectionary, and that all the prefaces of the Paul VI Missal will be used for Masses according to the Vetus Ordo.”
• 3
  Fifteen percent was the reported rate of Mass attendance in the province in 2007. There seems to be little reason to think that the rate in the Archdiocese of Quebec was much higher in 2002. By comparison, Mass attendance in France was said to be under 10 percent, but in Greece and Spain around 20 percent and in Ireland, Italy, and Poland above 30 percent.
• 4
  In the 1960s and ’70s, after centuries of Church dominance in Quebecois social and political life, dramatic changes ensued: “schools, hospitals, and social services were rigorously secularized; priestly vocations evaporated; Mass attendance plummeted; [and] the churches were emptied.” Nationalism is said to have taken the place of religion for many. Ouellet reports that while in the seminary, he had a desire to do some missionary work. At first, he was inclined to go to Asia, but after he was ordained as a Sulpician, he went to Colombia. He taught for six years there, at two seminaries. Later, he would return to Colombia for five more years as rector of one of those seminaries. — See “Biography of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, p.s.s.,” Society of the Priests of Saint-Sulpice, Province of Canada, 25 November 2010
• 5
  Calgary Bishop Frederick Henry, although he seems not to have addressed the Communion question directly, seems to have been blunter than the cardinal in his criticism of Martin.
• 6
  Claiming a weekly Mass attendance rate of 11 percent in 2016
• 7
  Appointments made between Cardinal Ouellet’s elevation to prefect and the election of Pope Francis include Ricardo Andrello (archbishop of Concepción to archbishop of Santiago, Chile), Michel Aupetit (priest to auxiliary bishop of Paris), Charles Chaput (archbishop of Denver to archbishop of Philadelphia), Blase Cupich (bishop of Rapid City to bishop of Spokane), William Lori (bishop of Bridgeport to archbishop of Baltimore), Charles Morerod (priest to bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg), Peter Ebere Okpaleke (priest to bishop of Ahiara, Nigeria), Angelo Scola (patriarch of Venice to archbishop of Milan), and Luis Antonio Tagle (bishop of Imus to archbishop of Manila).
• 8
  “Metropolitan Archbishop of San Juan of Puerto Rico, Letter to Marc Cardinal Ouellet of February 20, 2013,” LifeSite News, 20 February 2013
• 9
  Christopher White and Inés San Martín, “Confirmed: Pope to Meet USCCB Leaders on Monday,” Crux, 7 October 2018
• 10
  His Eminence seems not to have remarked publicly and directly on the specific role of women in forming their children. He has, however, held up the Holy Family as “a living ideal.” He has promoted the family as the most precious inheritance of the Christian tradition and has extolled Our Lady of Guadalupe’s example of bearing a child in the womb: “Mary is reminding us that the word of God took flesh in the womb of a woman.”
• 11
  The cardinal applauded the pope, for example, for “exclud[ing] . . . absurd theories” that “declare as compatible the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ and his corpse’s remaining in the sepulcher.”
• 12
  “According to the Revelation of Holy Scripture (1 Jn 4:16), the divine nature is nothing other than the divine Love subsisting in three absolutely correlative Persons.”
• 13
  Card. Marc Ouellet, “Let Us Understand ‘Amoris Laetitia,’” Abouna, 9 November 2017
• 14
  His Eminence distinguishes between the terms “migrant” and “refugee,” but it is not clear that he thinks any distinction in policy is permissible or desirable.
• 15
  The cardinal seems particularly fond of Catholic immigrants from Haiti and Latin America who “help us to remember our own roots.” “When they come to Canada or the U.S., they help to restore or save a Christian culture . . . they must bring and keep their religious identity, and enrich us with their faith.” “There will not be a radiant and missionary Church in America without a solidarity that is more concrete and creative between the North and the South of the continent.” The status of the Cardinal Marc Ouellet Foundation after 2008, when it had a $312,000 endowment, is not readily available.
• 16
  In the cardinal’s view, “Maintaining such a limit is not equivalent to declaring that these couples live in mortal sin or that they are denied Holy Communion for this moral reason.” He does not give further detail, but he likely means that, by refusing to authorize Communion, the Church does not speak to the subjective imputability of the gravely sinful act of divorce and civil remarriage. From the language quoted in this footnote and in the accompanying body text, one might think that the cardinal would exclude from Communion even divorced-and-“remarried” couples who are abstaining from sexual acts (see Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2015], 169-70). Nothing in the text alone would preclude that reading, but it would be surprising because the cardinal has carefully studied Familiaris Consortio, which seems to allow such an exception, albeit only if there are serious reasons not to satisfy the obligation to separate (FC 84). Possibly, Ouellet cuts out that exception to strengthen the clarity of his expression of opposition to making further exceptions to the sacramental discipline. According to Ouellet, “the reason for this limit is not first moral; it is sacramental.” By this, he seems to mean that something other than the moral character of the specific divorced-and-“remarried” individuals determines the wrongful character of distribution of Communion to them.
• 17
  In a 1998 article republished in 2011, Cardinal Ratzinger had asserted a similar position and in 2017, Cardinal Müller reasserted this view and interpreted Amoris Laetitia to accord with this position.
• 18
  See, e.g., Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love.
• 19
  “Verbatim of Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s Conference with Canadian Bishops,” Présence, 25 September 2017; Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017.
• 20
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017
• 21
  His Eminence cites the Catechism in holding that subjective imputability may be “nonexistent.”
• 22
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017
• 23
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017
• 24
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017
• 25
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017
• 26
  Marc Cardinal Ouellet, “Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness,” L’Osservatore Romano, 21 November 2017