The new Archbishop of Paris, just appointed to succeed Michel Aupetit, was born in 1951 in Dijon and officiated in Burgundy for more than 20 years.
The news fell in the morning, this Tuesday, April 26 : it is a Dijonnais, Laurent Ulrich, who succeeds Michel Aupetit as Archbishop of Paris, after the resignation of the latter a few months ago.
Laurent Ulrich was born in Dijon in 1951 and spent a long part of his career in Côte-d’Or. Ordained a priest at the Saint-Bénigne cathedral in Dijon in 1979, he left for Lyon as a trainee priest before returning to the diocese of Dijon to exercise several ministries there. He was notably vicar and chaplain of the colleges and high school of Beaune from 1980 to 1985. In 1984, he was appointed deputy dean of Beaune, before being ordained episcopal vicar from 1985 to 1990.
In 1990, Laurent Ulrich was appointed vicar general of the diocese of Dijon, a position he held until 2000, when he left the region to become archbishop of Chambéry, then of Lille in 2008.
“Monsignor Ulrich remains very attached to his diocese of origin. We see him very often strolling in the streets of Dijon“, we explain to the diocese of Dijon. “Of course, it’s a great pride.”
“It’s crazy that a Dijonnais, trained and ordained in Dijon, is ordained Archbishop of Paris.”
Laurent Ulrich, 70, himself admits that he was surprised by this appointment. “I was not excpecting that at all“, he said in a video published by the diocese of Paris, adding that he had had an initial reaction of “fear” in the face of the difficulty of the task.
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The diocese of Paris is indeed reputed to be difficult to govern, and still marked by the resignation of Michel Aupetit last December. The latter was challenged for his management of human resources, and several newspapers had lent him a romantic relationship with a woman he had categorically denied.
Laurent Ulrich’s priority will therefore be to appease this diocese, the most important in France, described as a “cauldron“and split into several”clans“, explains AFP. Another large-scale project: the continuation of the revelations on the sexual assaults committed by priests on thousands of victimspublished in the Sauvé report a few months ago. Laurent Ulrich will finally have to follow the reconstruction site of Notre-Dame de Paris, the cathedral still under construction three years after the fire that ravaged the spire of the building. The monument is to host a first mass in April 2024.
The Dijon archbishop will be installed in the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris on May 23. He will be in office for a maximum of five years.the date on which he will have to retire since he will be 75 (an age limit set by the Church).
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