The COMECE Bishops have nominated Brother Oliver Poquillon OP as their new General Secretary for a three year mandate. Brother Poquillon, who is Prior of the Dominican Convent of Saint Pierre Martyr in Strasbourg, will take up his new post in a few months.
Irish priest and former EU interpreter, Father Patrick H. Daly, acted as General Secretary of COMECE since 2013. The COMECE Bishops have thanked Father Daly for the work he has accomplished during his four years.
From 16 May, the Assistant General Secretary Michael Kuhn will be tasked with heading the Secretariat for the interim period.
Curriculum of Br Olivier Poquillon OP:
Brother Olivier Poquillon OP was born in 1966 in Maison-Laffitte. After his studies in public and international law, he joined the religious order of the Dominicans and studied Catholic theology. He made his solemn vow in 1998 and was ordained priest in 2001.
After fulfilling several tasks as an expert at the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the Council of Europe, as military chaplain in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Chad, as well as President of the French speaking Commission Justitia et Pax of the Dominican order, he spent the year 2003-2004 in Iraq as a lecturer at the University of Mosul. He then was university chaplain at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, in Strasbourg. From 2008 to 2013 he took on the position of Permanent Delegate of the Dominican Order to the United Nations in Geneva. Since 2013 he has been the Prior of the Dominican Convent of Saint Pierre Martyr in Strasbourg and remains active inter alia as an expert of the Holy See to the Council of Europe and as adviser of the delegation of his order to the UN.
COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, is made up of bishops delegated by the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the 28 Member States of the European Union. Bishop Noel Treanor, Bishop of Down and Connor is the COMECE representative from the Irish Bishops’ Conference.
