Archbishop of Montréal
Archbishop Christian Lépine, Archbishop of Montréal, was born on September 18, 1951, in Montréal. Before entering the major seminary he studied at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean and at the École polytechnique de Montréal. He was ordained a priest on September 7, 1983, at the parish of Saint-André-Apôtre, and he began his priestly ministry at Saint-Joseph-de-Mont-Royal. From 1986 to 1989 he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in dogmatic theology. On his return to Montréal he was appointed parish assistant at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges and parish priest of Saint-Joseph-de-Mont-Royal, where he remained until 1996, when he became director of the secretariat of Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte. In 1998 he was called to Rome, where he served at the Secretariat of State and then at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. In 2000 he returned to Montréal and was appointed a director of the Grand Séminaire de Montréal, a charge he held until 2006, and from 2006 to 2012 he was parish priest of Purification-de-la-Bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie and Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Throughout these years he taught philosophy and theology for some twenty years at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal. On July 11, 2011, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Montréal and Titular Bishop of Zabi. He received episcopal ordination on September 10, 2011, at Montréal, with Jean-Claude Turcotte as principal consecrator and Lionel Gendron and André Gazaille as co-consecrators, and he was appointed episcopal vicar for family and youth and director of the pastoral liturgy service. On March 20, 2012, he was appointed Archbishop of Montréal, the tenth bishop and eighth archbishop of that see since its establishment in 1836. His episcopal motto is Si scires donum Dei, If you knew the gift of God.