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Archbishop gives religion texts an 'F'

Almost two-thirds of the high school religion texts reviewed by a bishops' committee over the past 2½ years are not in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, according to the committee chairman.

"What causes us great concern is that many of the materials found to be inadequate are still in wide use thoughout the country," said the chairman, Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans.

"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."

In his report to the U.S. bishops at their fall General Assembly in Washington, D.C., November 10, Archbishop Hughes urged his fellow bishops to restrict the use of catechetical texts in their diocese to those found in conformity by the committee.

The archbishop said that the Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism found that almost two-thirds of the religion texts reviewed were so far off the mark, they could not be amended, but needed to be completely rewritten.
Some of the "deficiencies" he cited are:

• A relativistic approach to the Church and faith.  "Students, for instance, are easily led to believe that one religion or church is as good as another, and that the Catholic Church is just one church among many equals."
• Doctrine and Church teaching is sometimes introduced with a formula such as "Catholics believe this or that . . ."  "This tentative language gives the impression that the teaching is just one legitimate opinion among others rather than a matter of truth."
• The sacramental theology is often seriously flawed.  "Often the sacraments are presented as a way to celebrate special moments in life and not as a privileged moment of encounter with Christ."
• Ambiguous or even misleading teaching about the Church's prohibition of the ordination of women.
• In some lessons on the Sacrament of Marriage, reference is made to "partners" rather than man and woman or husband and wife.
• A reluctance to name premarital or extramarital sex as sin.  "The students may be encouraged to avoid premarital intercourse in order to escape consequences such as pregnancy or disease, not because such actions are sinful."
• A studied avoidance of revealed proper names or personal pronouns for the Persons of the Blessed Trinity.  Some texts speak of the Father only as God and then speak of Jesus without noting His Sonship or divinity.  The treatment of the Holy Spirit is either missing or flawed.
• In some texts miracles are explained away as ordinary phenomena, not of supernatural origin.  In some cases the miracles of Jesus are explained as a result of lucky timing.

"Unfortunately, the widespread use of these books perpetuates a religious illiteracy that is all too prevalent in the Church today," Archbishop Hughes said in a December 24 Zenit News story.

"It is very important that young people are given an opportunity, first of all, to learn the truths of their faith, and secondly, to grow in understanding of them."
In Hughes' New Orleans Archdiocese, Catholic schools will begin in the fall a process of  replacing unapproved religion texts with approved texts, according to a January 10 story in The Times-Picayune.

The complete text of the archbishop's report can be found at usccb.org.  Click Departments; Catechism; and Catechism Update - Current Issues.

The report includes a current listing of catechetical texts found to be in conformity by the ad hoc committee.