March 1, 2004: Msgr. Mario Paquette to Become New CCCB General Secretary

Monday, January 05 2004

(CCCB-Ottawa) Msgr. Mario Paquette, P.H., will become General Secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) on March 1, 2004. He will succeed Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, P.H., whose second three-year term comes to an end on February 29, 2004.

Msgr. Paquette was confirmed as the new General Secretary at the CCCB annual Plenary meeting in Cap-de-la-Madeleine in October.

Born in Montreal in 1938, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Montreal in 1963 and named a Prelate of Honour in 1988. He has served in many capacities in the Archdiocese, including episcopal vicar for cultural communities and Eastern Churches, episcopal vicar for Montreal’s central region, vice-chancellor, and a judge with the Montreal Tribunal and the Canadian Appeal Tribunal.

Msgr. Paquette holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is fluent in French, English, Italian and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Portuguese, German and Latin.

For his part, Msgr. Peter Schonenbach was recently named the CCCB representative for Ontario with the Interfaith Committee on Chaplaincy of the Correctional Service of Canada. He has been CCCB General Secretary since March 1998.