Pope Francis appointed a special envoy to participate in the celebrations for the 350 years of the Archdiocese of Quebec in Canada.
The Vatican Press Office reported This Saturday, July 20, the Holy Father has appointed Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille (France) as his special envoy “to the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the erection of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Quebec in Canada, scheduled for on September 20 – 22, 2024.”
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
These celebrations are part of the Holy Year or Jubilee that began in Quebec on December 8, 2023, which will extend until December 8, 2024, due to this anniversary.
According to Vatican News In French, the September celebrations will include various visits to places linked to the “founding communities, such as the school of the Ursuline nuns or the hospital of the Augustinian Hospitallers.”
“A festive day will also be celebrated in the Place de Youville, in the center of Quebec, in addition to a Mass with all the bishops of Canada gathered for their annual assembly. Furthermore, the pop group Glorious will offer three praise concerts, on his first tour on Canadian soil,” he adds.
Brief history of the Archdiocese of Quebec
In 1658, the Apostolic Vicariate of New France was established with Saint Francis of Laval as apostolic vicar and, with it, the first bishop of Canada, when these lands were a French colony.
Years later, in 1674, according to the website of the Archdiocese of Quebec, the vicariate would become a diocese.
The saint died on May 6, 1708, at the age of 85. Some time later, in 1819, Quebec would be elevated to the rank of archdiocese, as pointed out by the website specialized in bishops, Catholic Hierarchy.
Pope Saint John Paul II beatified Francisco de Laval on June 22, 1980, along with four other blesseds, such as the religious Mary of the Incarnation, considered the mother of the Catholic Church in Canada.
In his homily, the Polish Pope said that Francis de Laval consecrated “to the Indians the first fruits of his ministry; he constantly travels through the immense region, half of the North American continent; “He founded the seminary of Quebec, which would later become Laval University, one of the first Catholic universities of modern times.”
Laval, John Paul II continued, took care, “with particular care, of priests, men and women religious and obtained from the Holy See the institution in Paris of a seminary for ‘Foreign Missions’.”
On April 3, 2014 and without performing a canonization ceremony, one of the powers he possesses, Pope Francis inscribed Saint Francis of Laval and Mary of the Incarnation in the book of saints.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.