Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton is the new president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. He and the other bishops unveiled their new program on life and family issues at the end of their plenary Oct. 21. Photo by Nancy Wiechec / CNS.Catechesis is the cornerstone of new pastoral plan
By Deborah Gyapong
The Canadian Catholic News
OTTAWA (CCN)—Canada’s Catholic bishops approved a national pastoral plan on life and family at their annual plenary assembly Oct. 17-21 in Cornwall, Ont.
Bishops have a particular responsibility to stand up for the dignity of human life from its very beginning to natural death, Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith, the new president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), said at the plenary’s close Oct. 21.
“We want to find ever new ways to take the lead on this.”
The bishops have approved a plan developed through the CCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee on Life and Family with the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF).
The plan, now embryonic, has two stages, Archbishop Smith said. It will begin in 2012 with a year of preparation within dioceses as priests and diocesan officials prepare for the launch of the national plan in 2013 that will roll-out gradually as various elements are put in place to educate people about the need to stand up for human life at all stages and to celebrate the family, he said.
Elements would include catechesis, with the cornerstone being the “mystery and beauty of the family, because that’s where life begins, where life is nurtured and where growth in Christian living takes place,” he said.
The plan picks up on the key link between justice and life that the former CCCB President Pierre Morissette noted in his annual address to the plenary Oct. 17 needed to be reconnected, not only in the renewal of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, but in efforts to promote a culture of life.
“The most outrageous injustice today is the attacks against the child in the womb,” said Archbishop Smith. “If there is any example of injustice it is that. That highlights the profound link between working to promote life and the work for justice.”
“The heart of justice is recognizing the inherent dignity of every human person,” he said. “We begin to appreciate that in the family.”
“It’s the inherent recognition of human dignity and seeking to honor and respect it in all instances and seeking to curtail to go against any threats to that inherent dignity that’s the heart of justice,” he said. “The family becomes the heart of formation for justice and in fact the living out of justice.”
Catechesis will explore the different pressures on families and endeavor to help people understand how the family is “called to be a domestic church,” he said.
The plan also addresses marriage preparation and efforts to help couples “understand the majesty of the Church’s teachings on the mystery of family,” and how marriage is a sign of the Lord’s “unconditional and unbreakable love for the Church,” he said. It includes teaching on welcoming children as a gift and honoring them.
Catechesis will include ways of incorporating Pope John Paul II’s teachings on the Theology of the Body (ToB), which Archbishop Smith described as “so rich and so unique” that it might take “some time for us all to receive it.” But he noted ToB had at its core the appreciation of the “gift of human sexuality, human life and married life.”
In addition to catechesis, Archbishop Smith said the bishops “want to celebrate the family and lift it up.” They are considering setting aside a week every year dedicated to celebrating family and life.
The bishops will be working with COLF to “put flesh on” some of the initial elements of the national plan and send out to the dioceses ideas on how to put various items in place, so “together we’re giving an ever stronger united witness to beautify of family and the dignity of human life,” he said.
