Gérard Dionne (19 June 1919 – 13 May 2020) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

Bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and the oldest Roman Catholic Bishop of Canada.

Biography

Dionne was born in

Saint-Basile, New Brunswick Saint-Basile is a community in Madawaska County, New Brunswick, Canada. Formerly a separate municipality, it was amalgamated into the city of Edmundston on May 25, 1998. The 2006 Canadian Census recorded a population of 3,751. History Notable ...

and ordained a priest in

Edmundston Edmundston () is a city in Madawaska County, New Brunswick, Canada. Established in 1850, it had a population of 16,437 as of 2021. On January 1, 2023, Edmundston amalgamated with the village of Rivière-Verte, New Brunswick, Rivière-Verte and ...

on 1 May 1948. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario as well as Titular bishop of Garba on 29 January 1975 and consecrated on 8 April 1975. On 26 November 1983 he was appointed bishop of the Edmundston Diocese (installed on 29 January 1984) where he remained until his resignation on 20 October 1993. In November 2009 a Canadian judge determined that Dionne thwarted a 1983 police investigation into child abuse allegations surrounding Father Bernard Cloutier. He

turned 100 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarian ...

in June 2019.

References

External links

Catholic-HierarchyEdmundston dioceseSault Sainte-Marie, Ontario DioceseCanadian bishop thwarted police investigation of abusive priest
20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Canada Canadian men centenarians 1919 births 2020 deaths People from Madawaska County, New Brunswick Roman Catholic bishops of Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario Roman Catholic bishops of Edmundston {{Canada-RC-bishop-stub