CANADA
The Globe and Mail

Gerald Caplan
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Feb. 22 2013

For the many who wish the Catholic Church ill, including numerous Catholics, Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec would be a welcome choice as the next Pope. It was priests like Mr. Ouellet who helped estrange the faithful in once-Catholic Quebec and there is little reason to think he would not make the same contribution to the church universal.

As Quebec church historian and priest Benoit Lacroix puts it, Cardinal Ouellet represents “a very, very conservative current of Catholicism,” just as John Paul II and Benedict XVI have done. And Ouellet makes no bones about it. On women’s equality, birth control, divorce, ordaining women clergy and married priests, he is a proud relic. On abortion, he takes an extreme position, opposing it even in cases of rape. His statements implying that…