U.s.: Vatican Criticises Nun’s Controversial Book on Divorce and Sexuality

By Alessandro Speciale
Vatican Insider
June 4, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/stati-uniti-united-states-estados-unidos-15727/

Tensions continue between American nuns and the Vatican

New tensions between U.S. nuns and the Vatican are looming. Yesterday, the “commissioner” in charge of reforming the biggest organisation of women religious in the U.S., the Archbishop of Seattle, Mgr. Peter Sartain, tried to adopt a conciliatory tone, promising the Leadership Conference of Women Religious dialogue “in a spirit of openness, honesty, integrity and faithfulness to Church doctrine.”

But today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressed new criticisms against Margaret A. Farley’s book “Just Love. A Framework for Christian Sexual Etichs”. Sister Farley is a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order. The Congregation claimed the book “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality “ and deals with controversial subjects such as “masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions, the indissolubility of marriage and the problem of divorce and remarriage.” According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Sister Farley “either ignores the constant teaching of the Magisterium or, where it is occasionally mentioned, treats it as one opinion among others.”

The nun, for example, claims masturbation is more beneficial than detrimental to relationships while the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith insists “is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action,” because The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.

According to Sister Farley, homosexual acts “can be justified according to the same sexual ethic as heterosexual relationships and activities.” “This opinion is not acceptable,” the Congregation said, because homosexual acts “are intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved." While, in her book, the nun states she favours the recognition of same-sex unions, the Vatican retorts: “the respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions,” as these would be on a par with marriage.

In her book, Sister Farley expresses her doubts on the limits of the indissolubility of marriage and stated she was in favour of remarriage. But the Church, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recalled, says that Love seeks to be definitive; t cannot be an arrangement ‘until further notice’. So remarried divorcees “find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law.”

In a statement published by Yale University, where she teaches, Sister Farley thanked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for “the efforts to evaluate positions articulated in” her book, and said she does “not dispute the judgment that some of the positions contained within it are not in accord with current official Catholic teaching.” However, the nun stressed that “the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching.” Ultimately, she said, the book intends to propose “a framework for sexual ethics that uses criteria of justice in evaluating true and faithful sexual relationships and activities.”