Catholic orthodoxy:
The Vatican sharply criticizes a book on sexuality written by a prominent American nun.
The Vatican on Monday sharply criticized a book on sexuality written by a prominent American nun, saying it contradicted church teaching on issues like masturbation, homosexuality and same-sex marriage and that its author had a “defective understanding” of Catholic theology.
The Vatican’s orthodoxy office said the book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics” by Sister Margaret Farley, a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order and emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, posed “grave harm” to the faithful.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that in the 2006 book, Farley either ignored church teaching on core issues of human sexuality or treated it as merely one opinion among many.
Explores traditions
Farley said Monday she never intended the book to reflect current official Catholic teaching. Rather, she said, she wrote it to explore sexuality via various religious traditions, theological resources and human experience.
The Farley critique, signed by the American head of the congregation, Cardinal William Levada, comes amid the Vatican’s recent crackdown on the largest umbrella group of American sisters. The Vatican last month essentially imposed martial law on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, accusing it of undermining church teaching and imposing certain “radical feminist themes” that were incompatible with Catholicism. It ordered a full-scale overhaul of the group.
‘Direct contradiction’
In its statement, the Vatican singled out specific problems in Farley’s book which it said “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality.”
Farley, for example, writes that masturbation doesn’t raise any moral problems and can actually help relationships rather than hinder them. The Vatican asserted that according to church teaching “masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”
Farley wrote that homosexual people as well as their activities should be respected. Church teaching holds that gays should be respected but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”
On gay marriage, Farley said legal recognition of gay marriage can help transform the stigmatization of gays. Levada — Archbishop of San Francisco between 1995 and 2005 before becoming head of the congregation — wrote back that approving gay marriage would not only signal approval of “deviant behavior” but also would obscure the value of traditional marriage between man and woman in society.
Strong reaction likely
The Rev. James Martin, a liberal-leaning Jesuit author, said the notification will sadden many Catholic theologians who consider Farley a mentor.
“It will also, inevitably, raise strong emotions among those who already feel buffeted by the Vatican’s Apostolic Visitation of Catholic sisters in the U.S., and its intervention into the LCWR,” said Martin, who has been a vocal supporter of U.S. sisters since the Vatican crackdown.