Message from CCCB President for the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Religious Conference
Friday, May 30, 2014
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC), the Most Reverend Paul-André Durocher, Archbishop of Gatineau and President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), on May 29, 2014, delivered a special address during the 2014 General Assembly of the CRC. The message was on behalf of all the Bishops of Canada and, as an official CCCB document, counter-signed by CCCB General Secretary Msgr. Patrick Powers, P.H. Archbishop Durocher said that “the 60th anniversary of your Conference arrives at an important juncture in the life of the Church. Inspired and prodded by Evangelii Gaudium, we are together exploring how to be better evangelizers. We are repeatedly reminded by the Holy Father, Pope Francis, of the need for what he calls ‘pastoral conversion’. We are at the same time preparing for two consecutive Synods on the theme of the family in the context of evangelization.”
The message went on to acknowledge the importance of the “coordination and cooperation” between Conferences of Bishops and Conferences of religious superiors which the Second Vatican Council had called for 50 years ago in its Decree Perfectae Caritatis. Archbishop Durocher also noted the gratitude of all Bishops for how religious institutes and apostolic societies share in the life of the Church. He then appealed to them “to help each of our diocesan Churches, and the Universal Church, in appreciating, deepening, and even rediscovering, the sense of what it means to be … ‘the family of believers’.”