Back to the Februrary 2004 Newsletter Index

Many Baltimore High School Religion texts not on 'conformity list'

If your child attends a Catholic high school in the Baltimore Archdiocese, chances are good that his or her religion textbook is not on the "Conformity Listing" of approved catechetical texts published by a U.S. bishops' conference committee.

A survey of religion texts used in eight of the Archdiocese's 22 high schools (two boys' schools, two girls' schools and four coed schools) by Defend Life revealed that of 51 texts named, 40, or nearly four-fifths, are not on the current "Conformity Listing of Catechetical Texts and Series" published by the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism.

Texts that do appear on the list have been reviewed by the Ad Hoc Committee and found to be in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans, the committee chairman, reported to the fall General Assembly of U.S. bishops November 10 that nearly two-thirds of the high school texts reviewed by the committee in the past 2½ years were found not in conformity.

Those religion texts not on the list are not necessarily not in conformity, however.  They may simply not have been reviewed by the committee.
The Ad Hoc Committee has only been accepting materials for review since 1996, and reviews only those texts voluntarily submitted for review by the publisher, explained Msgr. Daniel Kutys, deputy secretary for catechesis at the U.S. Bishops Conference Education Department.

But parents concerned as to whether their high school child's religious textbook is in line with the Catechism of the Catholic Church will not be able to check a list of those texts that were reviewed and found deficient.

"The committee has agreed to not release that information," said Monsignor Kutys.

Archbishops Hughes, speaking of the rejected texts, said that some of the teachings in them are "seriously flawed . . . ambiguous or misleading," and that they are still in widespread use throughout the country.