This was the subject of the feature article I was working on this week, and I did speak to Archbishop Hughes as part of it.

As the New Orleans paper reports, the Archdiocese is stepping up to the plate and pulling all texts that the USCCB’s committee has found to be “not in conformity” from use.

Most of the religion textbooks in use at Catholic high schools are so flawed that New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes and a few colleagues are urging their brother bishops to pull them out of the classroom in favor of a relative handful that a bishops’ committee believes teach crisp, distinctively Catholic doctrine.

In New Orleans, freshmen next year will begin using only books approved by Hughes, even at independent Catholic high schools that thus far have chosen their own texts, the archbishop said in an interview this week.

….After some delay in the late 1990s, major publishers seem to be responding, eager to win bishops’ approval.

That is the case at Ave Maria Press, which has five of its nine high school titles approved and is working toward bringing the others into compliance, Welde said.

Since the bishops raised their objections, Ave Maria has set up a more stringent review process and company officials believe they are cooperating with the bishops, she said.

The Catholic textbook publishing field is populated by independent Catholic-oriented companies dedicated to serving the church, and by a few operations owned by religious orders of priests or brothers, such as Ave Maria Press, founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross in South Bend, Ind., and St. Mary Press, founded by the Christian Brothers in Winona, Minn.

Spokespeople for St. Mary and Harcourt Religion Publishers, another major player, either declined to talk about their work with the bishops or were unavailable.

In New Orleans, texts published by St. Mary are the most frequently in use, said a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Well, I don’t know about the “five out of nine.” According to the most recent conformity list, only two of the regular series texts have been judged to be in conformity. (although perhaps decisions have recently been made that aren’t yet listed) The third on the list is not a regular text but a “Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth” they’ve published, which is, in my judgment, very good. But not a regular text.

And the SMP folks wouldn’t talk to me, either, btw, and Harcourt never called me back.

Here’s Archbishop Hughes’ report to the November bishops’ meeting.

Also btw – if a text or teacher’s manual is not on the list, that does not necessarily mean that the materials were found not to be in conformity. It could mean the materials were not submitted at all. There is no requirement to submit the texts, nor any requirement to indicate to potential customers what the “conformity” status of your text is. When I asked Archbishop Hughes about this, he said that the process had worked well, in his estimation, at the elementary school level, and that they hoped, in time that “moral persuasion” would encourage bishops to use the conformity standard in text selection in their dioceses.

Thanks to Fr. Vierling, the “Internet Padre,” for the link to this morning’s article.