New Bishop of Valleyfield

Thursday, December 29 2011

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, today, appointed the Most Reverend Noël Simard as Bishop of Valleyfield, Québec, succeeding the Most Reverend Luc Cyr, who was appointed Archbishop of Sherbrooke on July 26, 2011.  

Bishop Simard was born on November 25, 1947, in the village of St-Aimé-des-Lacs, in the Charlevoix region of Québec, ordained to the Priesthood on May 28, 1972 and to the Episcopate on October 3, 2008, when he became Auxiliary Bishop of Sault Sainte-Marie.   Until then,  he had been  a Professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Prior to that, he taught at l’Université Laval in Québec and on a part-time basis at the University of Toronto in the field of Moral Theology.  He is the current President of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (an organization founded by the CCCB) and State Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus.

The diocese of Valleyfield has 25 parishes and missions, with a Catholic population of 199,390, which is served by 65 diocesan priests, 11 priests who are members of religious communities, 60 Religious Sisters and Brothers, 17 permanent deacons and 26 lay pastoral assistants.