Cardinal Ouellet to guide Synod on the Word

From the Catholic Register's website:

OTTAWA - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet has already begun his new assignment guiding next fall’s Synod of Bishops at the same time preparations move into high gear for the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress June 15-22.

Pope Benedict XVI will not attend the Congress, much to the disappointment of organizers and Quebeckers. However, around the time he the announcement was made, the Pope appointed Ouellet recording secretary of the Synod, which will gather about 250 bishops from around the world on the theme: “The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church.”

“I was moved by the gesture of the Holy Father, in the context of the difficulties I had over the fall,” Ouellet said in a telephone interview Jan. 31. “At the same time I am a bit scared because it is a lot of work,” he joked. “I will rest in 2009.

“My responsibility is to guide the whole work of the synod — technically and at the level of content,” he said.

Ouellet had just returned from a week in Rome, where he has already begun his work in helping to focus the bishops’ reflections. During the Synod next October, he will introduce the reflections and, after 10 days, integrate what has been heard so far. When it is over, he will oversee the development of a unified message. His experience as president of the commission of the message in the 2005 Synod of the Eucharist prepared him for his new role.

“Now it will be an opportunity to finalize the link between the Word and the Eucharist and to show the unity between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist,” he said, stressing the importance of the Word of God as “the ground of everything.”