Excerpt:
France's Catholic church has a new leader as of Wednesday after Monsignor Georges Pontier, Archbishop of Marseilles, was elected president of the French conference of bishops. He succeeds Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois.
Pontier, 69, has been Archbishop of Marseille since 2006, and will replace outgoing president André Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris who has been an outspoken critic of plans to legalise gay-marriage.
Pontier awas elected for a three-year term on Wednesday, as part of this week's plenary assembly of the Bishops' Conference in the French capital. He will commence his duties on July 1st, according to French Catholic newspaper La Croix.