For the first time in its 180-year-history, the Archdiocese of Luxembourg earlier this week received an auxiliary bishop. This is related to the duties of Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich as president of COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, which sees him travelling abroad regularly. The archbishop welcomed the appointment from Lourdes, where he participated in a diocesan pilgrimage, in a brief message.
57-year-old vicar general Msgr. Léon Wagener will take on this new duty for Luxembourg. He is a native of Ettelbruck, near Diekirch in northern Luxembourg, and was ordained a priest in 1988, just months before Luxembourg became an archdiocese. Msgr. Wagener has been almoner for (rural) youth and delegate and episcopal vicar for pastoral care, as well as parsh priest in Diekirch, Pontpierre and Luxembourg. In 20122 he was appointed as titular canon of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Luxembourgand he has been vicar-general since 2015. He is also an honorary chaplain of the Marian shrine of Lourdes. Bishop-elect Wagener will be the titular bishop of Aquæ Novæ in Numidia, in modern Algeria. That see was most recently held by Colombian Bishop Francisco Múnera Correa.
The Archdiocese of Luxembourg covers the entirety of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and has been a separate circumscription since 1840. It became a diocese in 1870 and an archdiocese in 1988. Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich has led the archdiocese since 2011. It is home to some 425.000 Catholics in 275 parishes. Some 180 priests and 400 lay religious assure the pastoral care in the archdiocese.
Photo credit: cathol.lu
In Caelo et in Terra 