GLENDALE, N.Y. — Lizette Marshall is very grateful that her daughter is learning her religious education in Brooklyn.

A Register investigative series is checking to see which dioceses use textbooks in conformity with the Catechism, as they’ve been asked to do by the U.S. bishops.

Brooklyn does, and that hasn’t only helped Marshall’s daughter. Marshall herself went to a Catholic high school, but never received the sacraments of Eucharist or confirmation.

While helping her daughter with her religious education homework, she started reading the textbooks for the class and soon she was asking Peg Walter, director of religious education at St. Pancras Parish in Glendale, N.Y., for more books. She began taking adult classes and last May, received both sacraments.

“The books just reopened a door for me that once had closed,” Marshall said. “It was because of my daughter’s studies that I wanted to complete my relationship with the sacraments.”

Walter said she knows of many parents like Marshall who are receiving a second — and better — religious education through their children, thanks to an effort begun by the U.S. bishops in 1996.

Walter said the bishops’ textbook-review process, in which publishers voluntarily submit texts before publication and agree to make changes needed for a declaration of conformity with the Catechism, is vital.

“I think it’s very important that, as a director of religious education, I know that the material in the text is solid,” she said.

The review process seeks to ensure that students are receiving a complete and accurate presentation of the faith based on the Catechism. Some dioceses now mandate that catechists use books bearing the bishops’ declaration of conformity. John Vitek, president and chief executive officer of St. Mary’s Press, Winona, Minn., has estimated that a third of dioceses in the country have such a requirement.

In Walter’s parish in the Diocese of Brooklyn, students in grades 1-6 use the We Believe series published by William H. Sadlier Inc., and junior high students use Resources for Christian Living’s Faith First series. Both are among the 121 series and texts that have been declared in conformity with the Catechism by the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, which was formed in 1994. (A list of the texts can be viewed at www.usccb.org)

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In the Diocese of Brooklyn, headed by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, all parish and school religious education programs are instructed to use only texts that have been determined by the bishops to be in conformity with the Catechism.

Bishop Frank Caggiano, vicar for evangelization and pastoral life, could

not be reached for comment on the Register’s findings.

Parishes are asked every year to report to the diocese what texts they have chosen. If any are discovered to be using texts without the conformity declaration, they are asked to reconsider their choices.

A random check of 12 parishes in the diocese found all but two to be using texts that have been found in conformity with the Catechism.

St. Anselm in Brooklyn was using two outdated texts, one for the seventh-grade confirmation class and another that is given to third-graders who have not yet received the sacraments.

The parish uses We Believe, a series that has been declared in conformity, as the main text for grades 1-6.

Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity Sister Anne Bernadette, the director of religious education, was concerned to learn that the two books, Silver Burdett Ginn’s We Celebrate Confirmation, and Sadlier’s Our Catholic Faith, had not been reviewed by the bishop’s committee.

“We try very hard to do whatever the diocese puts out so we don’t have any problem,” she said. “If they tell me don’t use it, I won’t use it, but I never heard anyone say that.” Both texts were listed in reports sent to the diocese, she said.

At another parish, the Oratory Church of St. Boniface in Brooklyn, texts from the bishops’ conformity listing were being used for grades 1-3: Silver Burdett Ginn’s This Is Our Faith (grade 1), Harcourt Religion Publishers’ Walking by Faith (grade 2), and Silver Burdett Ginn’s Blest Are We (grade 3). Eileen Randig, pastoral associate for formation, said families with children in these grades also are asked to purchase a copy of The Children’s Illustrated Bible, (DK Publishing).

For Grades 4-7, the parish has written its own curriculum, which uses the St. Mary’s Press Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth and New American Bible for Youth, two books from the St. Mary’s Press’ Discovering series, a book from Harcourt Religion Publishers’ Crossroads series and Loyola Press’ Prayer Book for Catholic Families.

Of these, only the Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth has been declared in conformity with the Catechism. Both the Discovering and Crossroads series are older texts that have never been reviewed by the bishops because the publishers are sending only new texts to the bishops’ committee.

In general, the danger in parishes designing programs from several different sources is that it can be confusing to catechists, Ronald Pihokker, director of the Archdiocese of Newark’s catechetical office, has said.

Major publishers have gone to great lengths to provide programs that cover all the bases. “The danger is that when we put something together ourselves, something is falling through the cracks,” he said.

Randig said the Brooklyn Diocese knows everything she is doing at the Oratory, including which books are used.

“We are asked to report with our annual census what we’re using,” she said.

She added that she was aware of the bishops’ conformity listing of textbooks, but tries to find books that will capture and hold the attention of the students.

“I’m also interested in getting something that will make us relevant to the lives of children who are living in the public school world,” she said.

But other catechists in the diocese said they had no problem finding books on the conformity listing that were relevant to students.

Franciscan Sister of the Poor Maria Klosterman, director of religious education at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Brooklyn, for example, said she appreciates the creative approach of Loyola Press’ Finding God: Our Response to God’s Gifts, which is used for grades 1-6, along with the Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth from St. Mary’s Press. The parish just added a new Loyola Press series for junior high students, Finding God, which recently received the bishops’ conformity declaration.

Barbara Campbell, vice president for catechesis and faith formation at Loyola and co-author of the Finding God series, said it was designed with a culturally relevant look “because kids are tired of textbooks.”

“It feels more like the graphic design of a magazine,” she added. “In the Ignatian tradition, we’ve paid very close attention to enculturating of the message so we could present the contents of the faith in a relevant way that helps [students] to answer their day-to-day questions and make applications to their own life.”

Judy Roberts is based in Graytown, Ohio.

Catechism Series at a Glance

WHAT’S IT ABOUT — The Register is examining 20 U.S. dioceses with the largest elementary school populations.

HISTORY — To improve the quality of religious education, the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism began reviewing textbooks in 1996.

AT ISSUE — In the past, textbooks have been found to be deficient in 10 fundamental areas: the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the magisterium, Christian view of man, an emphasis on God’s action, not man’s, grace, the sacraments, sin, Christian morality, and eschatology.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED — New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Trenton, N.J., use textbooks declared in conformity with the Catechism. Cincinnati does not. In Trenton, Newark, Milwaukee, Buffalo, St. Louis, Baltimore and Miami, outdated texts sometimes remain in the hands of students. Brooklyn diocese asks parishes to use the proper textbooks, and most do.

WHAT’S THE HOLDUP? — Diocesan officials fail to clearly communicate and enforce policies, and some publishers are continuing to sell older and/or unapproved texts for a variety of reasons, and some catechists prefer familiar or popular texts.