Gerald Emmett Carter Explained

Gerald Emmett Carter, CC (March 1, 1912  - April 6, 2003) was a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Toronto from 1978 to 1990, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979.

Biography

The youngest of eight children, Gerald Carter was born in Montreal, Quebec to an Irish Catholic family. His father worked for The Montreal Star; his brother, Alexander, would become Bishop of Sault-Sainte-Marie; and two of his sisters would become nuns.

Carter attended the Collège de Montréal before studying at the Grand Seminary and the Université de Montréal, where he obtained his Licentiate in Theology in 1936. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Alphonse-Emmanuel Deschamps on May 22, 1937. Carter then did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Montreal until 1939, whence he became the first director of the English section of École Normale Jacques-Cartier. During his tenure as chaplain to the Catholic students at McGill University from 1942 to 1956, he was also named director of the English section of Catholic Action (1944) and president of the Thomas More Institute for Adult Education (1946), and earned his doctorate in theology (1947).

He was Bishop of London, Ontario from 1964 to 1978, when he was appointed Archbishop of Toronto. He retired in 1990 and was succeeded by Aloysius Matthew Cardinal Ambrozic.

In 1982 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. The library at King's University College at the University of Western Ontario in London is named after him, as is Cardinal Carter Catholic High School in Aurora, Ontario.

Cardinal Carter died in Toronto and is buried at the Bishops’ Mausoleum at Holy Cross Cemetery north of Toronto.

References

• Web site: Gerald Emmett Cardinal Carter. Catholic-Hierarchy. mdy. February 10 2005.