Bouchard brings a strong academic background to the diocese. He held the post of seminary rector at St. Joseph Seminary in Edmonton before he was named bishop of Saint Paul in 2001. Born in Cornwall, Ont., in 1949 and ordained in 1976, Bouchard studied Scripture in Rome and Jerusalem. He pastored a number of parishes in the Alexandria-Cornwall diocese before going to teach at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal and then on to St. Joseph Seminary before his appointment there as rector.
Lortie will bring extensive experience in education, diocesan administration and pastoring to his new post. Born in1944 in Beauport, Que., Lortie studied theology at the Grand Séminaire in Quebec City.
After his ordination in 1970, he served at the Séminaire du Sacré-Coeur in Saint-Victor de Beauce, Que., for a couple of years before heading to the Institut de catéchèse in Paris and then on to Laval University in Quebec for more study. He served mainly in the field of education for both the Quebec archdiocese and the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops. From 1995 to 2008, Lortie served as pastor of various parishes in the diocese. In 2008, he was episcopal vicar for four pastoral regions before being named auxiliary bishop of Quebec in 2009.
Lortie is a member of the CCCB's Standing Committee for Communications.
Trois-Rivières serves a Catholic population of 232,985 through 67 parishes and missions, with 93 diocesan priests, 67 religious priests, 469 religious brothers and sisters, 31 permanent deacons and 45 lay pastoral assistants.
The Mont-Laurier diocese includes a Catholic population of 77,340, 19 parishes and missions, 24 diocesan priests, six religious priests, 28 religious brothers and sisters, two permanent deacons and 17 lay pastoral assistants.
Pope names two bishops to Quebec dioceses
By Deborah Gyapong, Canadian Catholic NewsOTTAWA - On Feb. 2, Pope Benedict XVI named new bishops to the Quebec dioceses of Trois-Rivières and Mont-Laurier upon accepting the resignation of their Ordinaries who had reached the retirement age of 75.
Bishop Luc Bouchard, who has been serving the bilingual northern Alberta diocese of St. Paul since 2001, has been named to Trois-Rivières, replacing Bishop Martin Veillette, while Bishop Paul Lortie, an auxiliary bishop in the Quebec archdiocese since 2009, will become bishop of Mont-Laurier, a diocese in southwestern Quebec, north of Gatineau, replacing Bishop Vital Massé.
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