Cardinal Marc Ouellet is now taking up in earnest his duties as new head of the extremely important Congregation for Bishops, extremely important because it has such a strong say in who gets to be a bishops. No-one needs any convincing that Ireland needs strong, decisive, capable and orthodox bishops now more than ever.

Despite the French name, the fact that Ouellet is from a broadly English-speaking part of the world means he should be more in tune with our needs than some of his Italian and other predecessors.  

The fact that two of the Apostolic Visitors to Ireland Canadian is also surely significant because they will presumably relay back to Cardinal Ouellet what is needed here.

In any case, Cardinal Ouellet is exactly the kind of strong, orthodox, self-confident bishop we need here as this excerpt from the website Catholic Culture testifies:

"Church leaders should base their public statements on 'spiritual discernment and not just political calculation,' according to the incoming prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

"Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who has encountered fierce political opposition during his tenure as Archbishop of Quebec City, spoke about the duties of bishops before leaving for Rome to take up his new duties. His remarks were a counterpoint to the criticism aired by Bishop Martin Veillette, who had suggested that the cardinal was rash in his public pronouncements and said that sometimes it is 'more important to keep silent than to speak.'

Cardinal Ouellet offered a very different perspective, saying that a bishop should speak with conviction and not be deterred by the likelihood of opposition. He argued that if a Catholic leader refrains from public comment 'because you don’t believe that it is possible that people accept it, you are in trouble.'"

Precisely.