We talk about catechesis a lot here, and are fairly conversant in what’s happening. Over the past ten years or so, the US bishops have, on paper, taken a more pro-active role in textbook content. There is an Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the use of the Catecism that is officially charged with this responsiblity. Archbishop Hughes of New Orleans is its chair, and Archbishop Buechlein, a consultant to the committee, has spoken frequently on the problems with catechetical texts as well.

This 10-year review of the process by Archbishop Hughes gives you a good idea of the discussions and problems.

Here’s Archbishop Hughes’ address to the USCCB at their November 2004 meeting. A snippet:

Our experience in conducting these reviews has made clear to us two important points. The first is that the high school catechetical publishers continue to work with us to create high school religion texts which are in conformity to the catechism. The second is that the working relationship between the committee and some high school publishers has not yet borne as much fruit as we had hoped.

If you were to have the most recent Catechism Update in front of you, you would quickly recognize that there are few high school texts in the conformity listing. At this point, we have not been able to grant a declaration of conformity to any one complete high school series from any of the major publishers whose texts are most frequently used in this country. Over the past two and one-half years, close to two-thirds of the conformity reviews we have conducted on high school catechetical materials have ended with the judgment that the materials were not only inadequate for conformity, but also could not be amended and therefore needed to be rewritten. What causes us great concern is that many of the materials found to be inadequate are still in wide use throughout the country.

You may ask, What are some examples of deficiencies we have found?

But obviously, if the text I quoted earlier today is judged in conformity, which it is – there are still problems. (The other problem with the conformity review is that it doesn’t review all materials. There are supplementary materials that aren’t reviewed, and neither are things like magazine-y and pamphlet-y take home materials.)

There is a lot of tussling go on about this issue. Some publishers of high school materials have withdrawn their books rather than try to bring them into conformity, citing cost. Someone I know was in attendance at one of the annual meetings between this committee and textbook publishers a few years ago and said the tension was quite evident.

Textbook publishing is very expensive, but once you get the texts out there, it is very lucrative. It is expensive to re-do texts to be in conformity, and publishers are clearly not happy about that. In addition, there is the market at play. Bishops are supposed to approve only texts judged to be in conformity for use in their dioceses. A lot do this – some don’t. There are still huge segments of the market – DRES and Catholic school personnel, who are very resistant to more "substantive" programs and programs that are more definitive about Catholic teaching. At the meeting, the publishers were quite forthright about that – if we change in the direction you want us to…they won’t buy our books.

See? A vicious, vicious circle. Which ultimately goes back to the bishops, once again, and what they communicate to the catechetical personnel of their diocese about what is to be taught and what is not to be taught, as well as the content of the training programs for catechists and other lay ministers.