Last Updated: Tuesday - 01/04/2011

Goulet to head St. Boniface

WINNIPEG — Former general secretaries of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops will now head both archdioceses in the Winnipeg area.

Pope John Paul has appointed Sulpician Father Emilius Goulet - rector of the Canadian Pontifical College - as archbishop of St. Boniface.

Goulet, 68, was French-sector general secretary of the CCCB for five years ending in 1999 when he was appointed rector of the college, a residence for Canadian priests studying in Rome.

He succeeds another Sulpician, Archbishop Antoine Hacault, who died in April 2000.

Archbishop James Weisgerber, English-sector general secretary for the CCCB for several years, was installed as archdiocese of Winnipeg last August.

The pope announced Goulet's appointment June 23, the day before the 43rd anniversary of his ordination in St. Boniface.

Born in Saint-Isidore de Dorchester, Que., Goulet studied theology at the Grand Seminary in St. Boniface. He joined the Sulpicians in 1960 and studied theology in Montreal, Rome and Jerusalem.

Goulet has been a seminary professor of Scripture in St. Boniface, Guatemala, Colombia and Montreal.

He was also seminary rector in Manizales, Colombia, and was provincial superior of the Sulpicians in Montreal. The St. Boniface Archdiocese has a Catholic population of 101,000.

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