Quebec-born cardinal known as the Shadow
Sept 07, 2007
Personal friend of Pope John Paul II. Received the Order of Canada in 1993 in recognition of his 'unstinting service to the church'
The Gazette (Montreal, August 29) A funeral is to be held Tuesday in Montreal for Édouard Gagnon, a Quebec-born cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and former president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Vatican department responsible for promoting family values.
Gagnon died Saturday in his apartment at the Sulpician Seminary in Montreal. He was 89.
Known as the Shadow, Gagnon was a low-profile prelate who spent more than 30 years as a Vatican bureaucrat.
"He was a faithful pastor who, with an evangelical spirit, consecrated his life in service to Christ and to his Church," said Lawrence Terrien, superior-general of the Sulpician fraternity of priests.
Édouard Gagnon was one of 13 children in a carpenter's family. He was born in Port Daniel-Gascons, a Gaspé community, on Jan. 15, 1918, and was raised in Montreal's Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district.
Gagnon studied for the priesthood at the Grand Seminary in Montreal. Ordained in 1940, he majored in canon law at Université Laval before being accepted as a Sulpician priest in 1945. He then taught moral theology and canon law at the Grand Seminary.
He was head of the seminary in St. Boniface, Man., from 1954 to 1960, then was elected Provincial of the Society of St. Sulpice for Canada, Japan and Latin America.
In the early 1970s, he served briefly as bishop of St. Paul, Alta. In 1972, he became rector of the Canadian College in Rome, where Pope Paul VI appointed him vice-president of the newly created Committee for the Family. When the committee was given the status of a pontifical council, Gagnon was put in charge.
During his years in Rome, Gagnon drafted a harsh report critical of Vatican bureaucracy; the report was, for the most part, ignored.
Gagnon was a personal friend of Pope John Paul II, who made him a cardinal in 1985.
One of Gagnon's earliest assignments was to mediate the dispute between reactionary French bishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Vatican over Lefebvre's refusal to accept ecumenical reforms. Lefebvre started his own cult, the Society of St. Pius X, and was excommunicated.
Gagnon resigned his Vatican assignment in 1990 and retired seven years ago.
Gagnon was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993 in recognition of his "unstinting service to the church."
With Gagnon's death, there now are only three Canadian cardinals: Marc Ouellet, the primate, in Quebec City; Jean- Claude Turcotte, archbishop of Montreal; and Toronto's Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, who is retired.
Worldwide, there are 181 members of the College of Cardinals, but only 105 are under age 80 and are eligible to vote in a papal election.
Gagnon's body is to be exposed in the chapel at Notre Dame Basilica between noon and 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday. The funeral is to be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the basilica.
Quebec-born cardinal known as the Shadow