Possible Papal Contender Has Mixed Following in Que.

CP24
February 12, 2013

http://www.cp24.com/news/possible-papal-contender-has-mixed-following-in-que-1.1153880

Pope Benedict XVI, right, greets Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada, at the beginning of a mass for Latin America in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Monday, Dec. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

Word that a Canadian cardinal is a presumed contender to succeed Pope Benedict has been met with a mixed response in his own Quebec backyard.

Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests and even a member of the clergy aren't quite in Marc Cardinal Ouellet's cheering section.

The idea of a global icon emerging from here has stirred the local imagination.

But that excitement is tempered by the fact that Ouellet's home province has become intensely secular and even anti-clerical over the years.

Rev. Raymond Gravel says amid this decline the Catholic church should be looking for a pope who has worked closely to the world's poor -- not another theologian.

The former Bloc Quebecois MP says he doesn't know if Ouellet fits this bill.

Ouellet is being touted as one of the likeliest successors -- perhaps even the favourite -- to take over from Pope Benedict.