Auxiliary Bishop Appointed for the Archdiocese of Québec

Monday, November 25 2019

Ottawa – Today, His Holiness Pope Francis appointed Father Martin Laliberté, P.M.É., Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Québec. At the time of his appointment, the Bishop-elect was serving as Superior General of the Société des Missions-Étrangères (SMÉ) for the province of Québec.

Bishop-elect Laliberté was born in Charlesbourg, Québec on 13 December 1964. He obtained a Bachelor of Theology and a diploma in Education from the Université Laval in 1987. He worked as lay missionary for two years in Haiti prior to joining the Société des Missions-Étrangères du Québec (Québec Foreign Mission Society) in 1990 as a youth missionary animator for the province of Québec. He then pursued additional studies and obtained a Master’s degree is Missiology from the University of Saint Paul. He was ordained to the priesthood on 28 October 1995 and, from 1996 until 2004, his pastoral ministry focused on missionary work in the Amazon region of Brazil. Upon his return to Canada in 2004, he served as Director for the Centre international de formation missionnaire (CIFM) of the Société des Missions Étrangères. In 2008, he became a member of the Central Council of the SMÉ as Vicar General. He was first elected Superior General in 2013 and was reelected for a second mandate in 2018.

The Archdiocese of Québec has 68 parishes and missions, with a Catholic population of 1,059,152 served by 333 diocesan priests, 216 priests who are members of institutes of consecrated life, 79 permanent deacons, 124 Brothers and 1,909 Sisters who are members of institutes of consecrated life, as well as 76 lay pastoral agents.