President's Report
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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT 2011 Plenary Assembly Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) My brother Bishops, guests, and members of the staff: My report to you last year focused on evangelization. It was the theme that brought together the major points from the 2010 Plenary agenda, as well as highlighting a number of major activities from the preceding year. This year, the common thread running through my report is the New Evangelization. It was Blessed John Paul II who proposed this forward-looking approach to the Church already during the 1980s. The significance of the Pope’s remarks was echoed at the turn of the millennium in his frequently quoted phrase “setting out into the deep”. The New Evangelization will be the topic for next year’s Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, as well as for the upcoming Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America. During our Plenary this year, Archbishop Gérald Cyprien Lacroix will lead us in a reflection on the Lineamenta for the Synod. Later in this meeting, you will elect the delegates from our Conference whom the Holy Father will later officially appoint to the Synod. We can already identify a number of elements that will be key for implementing the New Evangelization. These are based on the experiences of the Church over the past generation, and are also evident in our universal, national and diocesan experiences as Church. These same elements are apparent in the documents from the Magisterium since the Second Vatican Council, as indicated in the two texts that will be key for our Plenary this year, Sacramentum Caritatis and Verbum Domini. What I wish to do in this report is to link a number of these elements to an overview of what is to come during our Plenary Assembly this week. 1. Overview of what is to come during the Plenary A. The New Evangelization proclaims the message of hope, love and life to all our world. Our principal resource person for this year’s Plenary is the Most Reverend Robert Le Gall, Archbishop of Toulouse. He will speak to us on Pope Benedict XVI’s Post-Synodal Exhortations Sacramentum Caritatis (“The Sacrament of Charity”) and Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”). Both documents, each from its particular perspective, outline what will be solid foundations for the New Evangelization. Verbum Domini, no. 91, states: “What the Church proclaims to the world is the Logos of Hope (cf. 1 Pet 3:15); in order to be able to live fully each moment, men and women need ‘the great hope’ which is ‘the God who possesses a human face and who “loves us to the end” (Jn 13:1)’….” For its part, Sacramentum Caritatis, no. 84, recalls that “The love that we celebrate … is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all…. We too must be able to tell our brothers and sisters with conviction: ‘That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us’ (1 Jn 1:3).” B. The New Evangelization is a sign we are moving forward, and gives us the means to move forward. Spiritual worship in Christ includes a change in our way of “living and thinking” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 77). God’s word engages us as “hearers” and “heralds” (Verbum Domini, 91). Children and youth show that society is moving forward. They are also the force that makes a society change. Moving forward in part includes the courage and determination to admit, and avoid, the mistakes of the past. Sometimes, actions and omissions of some Bishops have led to loss of hope in our Church and in our world. Our Plenary this year will again take up the topic of sexual abuse. You will be receiving information from the Standing Committee for Canon Law on its plan for responding to a request from Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that all Episcopal Conferences review their policies and protocols on sexual abuse, so our churches and communities are indeed safe environments. As well, the Standing Committee will undertake a review of the Schema for Book Six of the Code of Canon Law, “Sanctions in the Church”. We will hear from Archbishop Anthony Mancini and Bishop Ronald P. Fabbro, C.S.B., about their participation in the recent McGill conference on the topic “Trauma & Transformation: The Catholic Church and the Sexual Abuse Crisis”. There will be a report too from Bishop Robert Anthony Daniels on a meeting of English-speaking Bishops earlier this year in Rome on safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults. In addition, we had tried to have a speaker from the United States to talk about the recent studies by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of City University of New York. These major analyses show the Church there did not do worse than other social institutions in preventing or responding to sexual abuse. The worrisome point for us, however, is why as Church we did not do better than the rest of society. C. New Evangelization includes recommitment to justice and charity, and reconnects justice with charity. The “Church cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the struggle for justice” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 89). “Commitment to justice, reconciliation and peace” are ultimately founded on, and fulfilled in, “the love revealed to us in Christ” (Verbum Domini, 103). Our Plenary will receive and discuss two major reports. The first, by the Standing Committee for the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP). The second, a proposal for immediate and future pastoral planning by the Ad Hoc Committee for Life and Family. Part of the challenge facing us is to remind our faithful how these two areas of concern are intimately inter-related. Justice and human rights include respect for all human life. The dignity of human life is protected and advanced by the “promotion of the common good in all its forms”, including concern for the human person from conception to natural death, and thus every moment in between (Sacramentum Caritatis, 83). In order to “denounce inhumane situations… of injustice and exploitation,” we must “work tirelessly in the service of the civilization of love” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 90). 2 As a Bishop who has been privileged to serve on the Executive of your Conference for eight years, and before then as a CCCB delegate on the Development and Peace National Council for six years, I urge the members of both our Conference as well as Development and Peace to find the means to continue working together, to strengthen and improve collaboration, and to renew a common witness. “Love of neighbour, rooted in the love of God, ought to see us constantly committed as individuals and as an ecclesial community, both local and universal” (Verbum Domini, 103). I am confident that our Conference’s Standing Committee will prove an effective way for us Bishops to move forward in accompanying and renewing Development and Peace in its work and mission. The proposed elements of the pastoral plan for life and family should also prove to be a constructive approach for the future, both immediate and long-term. “Families … [t]he love between man and woman, openness to life, and the raising of children are privileged spheres… to transform life and give it its full meaning” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 79). Once our Assembly has ensured that the recommendations by the Ad Hoc Committee provide sufficient flexibility and adaptability for regional and local needs, I am confident that our diocesan churches will find in the plan an important pastoral strategy “to support, guide and encourage the lay faithful to live fully their vocation to holiness within this world” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 79). The most basic “school” for us to teach the values of justice, peace and reconciliation is the family. The laity have a “prophetic role” in bearing “witness to the Gospel in daily life;” “a consciousness of this must be revived in every family, parish, community, association and ecclesial movement.” (Verbum Domini, 94) D. New Evangelization leads us to finding new ways to give public witness as community and as individual members of the community. Christian life and worship are the witness and “work” of Christus totus, the whole Christ (Sacramentum Caritatis, subheading, nn. 36-42). Through “our engagement in the world”, we are accountable “before Christ, the Lord of history”. In proclaiming the Gospel, we “encourage one another to do good” (Verbum Domini, 99). During this meeting, our Conference’s three national Commissions will lead us in reflections on Christian witness from three perspectives: freedom and formation of conscience (Commission for Doctrine); harvesting the fruits of ecumenical dialogue (Commission for Christian Unity, Religious Relations with the Jews, and Interfaith Dialogue); and immigration (Commission for Justice and Peace). E. New Evangelization involves the use of new and proven forms of communication. The evangelization of cultures involves dialogue, interpretation, engagement in “every cultural reality”, commitment, and discernment (Sacramentum Caritatis, 78). It includes “recognition of the importance of culture”, “a sense of the Bible as the great code for cultures”, promotion of artistic expressions, “careful and intelligent use of the communications media, both old and new”, “personal contact, which remains indispensable”, and increased use of the internet as a “new forum” (Verbum Domini, 109-113). 3 The theme for the last Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America was communications. Bishops from Latin America, United States and Canada came away determined to make better use of the new means of communication.