“It will be for you to decide how to adapt the elements of the plan to your own evolving pastoral needs, diocesan resources and local priorities.”

The letter refers to previous CCCB president Bishop Pierre Morissette’s address to the recent plenary in which he “reminded us that the family is closely linked to the new evangelization, since it is the most basic ‘school’ for us to teach the values of justice, peace and reconciliation.”

Smith also noted the Holy Father had also linked the new evangelization and the family in an address made in early December, in which the Pope described the family as “an individual microcosm of the Church, a community which is saved and saves, which is evangelized and evangelizes.”

The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) will assist the CCCB in the development of any resources needed for the pastoral plan and its implementation, which will be co-ordinated through CCCB general secretary Msgr. Pat Powers.

Powers will review material and send on resources that may help bishops in their diocesan plans, Smith wrote.

Though Smith’s letter did not include any details of the plan, in an interview with CCN on Oct. 21, following the October plenary, the archbishop gave some general outlines of what it may include:

o New ways for Canada’s bishops to take a lead on life and family issues;

o 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”;

o 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”;

o Teaching on welcoming children as a gift and honouring them;

o Greater integration of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body in both marriage preparation and catechesis about human dignity and the family;

o Celebrating family and life and lifting it up, perhaps through setting aside a week every year dedicated to celebrating family and life.

The CCCB has also closed down the Ad hoc Committee on Life and Family that made the plan’s recommendations, Smith wrote.

This committee was one of two set up two years ago following a series of online reports stating that the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace was funding projects through overseas partners that were “pro-abortion,” or that advocated for social change contrary to the Church’s teachings.