  This programmatic paper lays down the possibility to reconcile the necessity
to resum many-body correlations into the energy kernel with the fact that safe
multi-reference energy density functional (EDF) calculations cannot be achieved
whenever the Pauli principle is not strictly enforced, as is for example the
case when many-body correlations are parametrized under the form of empirical
density dependencies. Our proposal is to exploit a newly developed ab initio
many-body formalism to guide the construction of safe, explicitly correlated
and systematically improvable parametrizations of the {\it off-diagonal} energy
and norm kernels that lie at the heart of the nuclear EDF method. The many-body
formalism of interest relies on the concepts of symmetry breaking {\it and}
restoration that have made the fortune of the nuclear EDF method and is, as
such, amenable to this guidance. After elaborating on our proposal, we briefly
outline the project we plan to execute in the years to come.
