FAQ / Concerns

Provincial Council of the Washington Province OCDS
email:  wpalanza@pcocds.onmicrosoft.com
339-364-8676

April 14, 2025

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Thank you for reaching out to us with your questions and your support of ICS Publications. We would like to address some of your concerns. 

The move to ICS is a national decision approved by the Oklahoma, California/Arizona and Washington Provincial Councils and their Delegates. The National Formation Program is used by all three provinces.  It is not our province alone making this adjustment.  All three provinces will be removing Lulu press and pdf’s from our websites when printing begins. 

Some answers to your questions and points to remember:   

•   ICS holds the copyrights to a majority of the materials used in the program.

•   They are being offered to us AT COST.

•   You do not have to purchase all the books at the same time. 

•   When purchased individually, as needed, they are $11-$13.  The cost of a coffee and breakfast sandwich perhaps. 

•   Members can share books — passing their current books on to the next formation class.

•   If it is a question of a member not being able to afford it, that should never be a deterrent, as we are called to support our members if there is financial difficulty. 

•   If a community wants to keep a copy of all the books, they do not have to purchase all of them at the same time.  It can be done over time as they are able. 

In our previous letter to the communities, it was specifically stated that if your community is using the revised copies (dated March 2024 or later) from Lulu press - you may continue to use them.  So, many communities won’t have to purchase new books unless they want to.  If you are using a handbook prior to March 2024, you will not have the corrections that were found following the initial printing by Lulu.   

Lastly, while it may be small, Lulu Press is making a profit from our purchase.  ICS is a better quality, from a Carmelite/Catholic publisher selling them to us AT COST.

This decision was made to unify the printing across the U.S. while supporting ICS, our own Carmelite publisher, and not some other secular vendor.  We must appreciate and support our very valuable Carmelite Resources — they are precious and need to be supported and protected from encroaching secular businesses.

To place a pre-order, kindly follow this link: 

https://www.icspublications.org/collections/us-national-ocds-formation-program   

ICS will also have formation handbooks available for purchase at the June, 2025 Congress in Phoenix, AZ. 

An important message from ICS: The pre-order process for the ICS versions of the Formation Program handbooks is being conducted before we set the final quantities on the first printing. As a result, we will not have a tentative ship date until we are ready to place the initial order.  

Please carefully read the disclaimers on the pages, as we will not make any exceptions to these procedures.

If you choose, against our advice, to include other ICS books on your pre-order, these books WILL NOT SHIP until the pre-orders have arrived. Please do not include other titles on your pre-order unless you are absolutely sure that you are able to wait to receive them at a presently undetermined date.

The books have been priced according to their actual cost and not on a wholesale basis like our other books, so there are absolutely no discounts on these items, nor will they count for the $100 minimum for the bulk discount on our other books. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Provincial Council at wpalanza@pcocds.onmicrosoft.com.

In Carmel,

Laura Iwan, OCDS Denis Langlois, OCDS Barbara Sardella, OCDS
Mary Valenti, OCDS Mary Valenti, OCDS Wendy Palanza, OCDS, President