Vatican City, Jun 4, 2012 / 08:49 am
The Vatican has declared that a book on sexual morality written by a controversial American sister runs so contrary to Church teaching that it cannot be considered Catholic.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expresses profound regret that a member of an Institute of Consecrated Life, Sr. Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M., affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality,” says the notification, issued in Rome on June 4.
The decision follows a two-year audit of Sr. Farley’s book “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” which argues against the Church’s teaching on masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions and marriage. The Sister of Mercy and emeritus professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School published her book in 2006.
The audit found that “Just Love” did not present “a correct understanding of the role of the Church’s Magisterium as the teaching authority of the Bishops united with the Successor of Peter” but, instead, presented it as just “one opinion among others.”
It further concluded that Sr. Farley’s work rejected “the objective nature of the natural moral law,” choosing instead to argue “on the basis of conclusions selected from certain philosophical currents” or “from her own understanding of ‘contemporary experience.’”
The issuing of a notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is both significant and infrequent.