“Bishop Gérald Caussé,” Liahona, November 2015, 139
Bishop Gérald Caussé
Presiding Bishop
Gérald Caussé was still establishing his career in the food-distribution industry in France at age 33 when the president of his company called him aside. He had noticed Gérald’s spiritual convictions and his ability to make sound judgments and unify employees—traits developed through activity, service, and leadership in the Church. The president concluded that Gérald was a man he could trust.
To his surprise, Gérald was soon given the responsibility of managing 1,800 employees. By the time he was called to serve as a General Authority Seventy a decade later, in April 2008, he was managing several food-distribution companies.
Bishop Caussé’s business and management skills, coupled with his ecclesiastical service and leadership experience, will serve him well as the Church’s new Presiding Bishop. Bishop Caussé, who had been serving as First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric since March 2012, received his new calling just days after the October general conference. He replaces Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who was sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 3, 2015.
Bishop Gérald Jean Caussé, the Church’s 15th Presiding Bishop, was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1963. He married Valérie Babin in 1986, in the Bern Switzerland Temple. They have five children and five grandchildren.
In addition to his experience in the Presiding Bishopric and as a member of the Seventy, he has served as a counselor in the Europe Area Presidency and as an Area Seventy, stake president, stake president’s counselor, bishop’s counselor, high priests group leader, and elders quorum president.
As a young man, Bishop Caussé found happiness as well as faith through his service in the Church. He served as Primary pianist at age 12 and as Sunday School president at age 16. He also stayed busy with Aaronic Priesthood duties.
“Serving in the Church,” including joining his father in his duties as a bishop and branch president, “helped me get my testimony,” he says.
Bishop Caussé earned a master’s degree in business from the ESSEC Business School in France in 1987. Before beginning his career, he served in the French Air Force, where he was assigned to a NATO agency.