by Chi Ibe
YNaija reported, yesterday, how the Vatican was outraged by Rev. Sister Margaret Farley’s book titled “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” a publication that disagrees with church teaching on same-sex marriage, masturbation, and remarrying after divorce. They condemned the book as contradicting church principles but it seems that the Holy See’s criticism of the book has turned out to have the ‘holy man’s touch’ on the book.
On Monday, the book was ranked on Amazon at 142,982, after the news of the Vatican’s condemnation broke, there was a dramatic change. By Tuesday afternoon, Farley’s book was spotted at number 16.
Sister Margaret Farley, a long time Yale scholar and past president of both the Society of Christian Ethics and the Catholic Theological Society of America issued a statement saying she knows her views go against official teaching but is trying as a theologian to raise the “possibility of development in sexual ethics”.
The leader of a group of U.S. Catholic nuns on April 21, rejected the condemnation by a Vatican report that said it defied Church doctrine. “We haven’t violated any teaching,” Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, told AFP.
Many will be watching next week when two leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — whose members represent the vast majority of U.S. nuns — head to Rome to meet on the proposed overhaul due to what an official report called “radical feminism”. The women surprised even supporters on Friday when they issued a statement saying the Vatican report caused “scandal and pain” among already-polarized Catholics.
Farley’s book resonates as a debate point because it embodies the core divisions among Catholics: Whether their faith calls them to obey their hierarchy or question it, and whether one can be a good and devout Catholic while also rejecting bishops’ views on everything from abortion to Obama.
This is exactly why the world is heading for hell!!! People wake up and try to tweek God's teaching in the name of modernism, liberalism, feminism, etc…Do you have to impose your devilish teachings on the Church? The Church does not impose itself on the world, she allows you to freely choose to belong to the Body of Christ or you leave, nobody forces you. So I really wonder why the world believes that the Church must conform to its evil whims. As for Sr. Margaret I pray for her so that she realises the extent of the damage she is causing on people's souls. Am imagining what would be her fate if she attemped such affontry to any other religion (Islam, Judaism, etc), I need not mention what would have befallen her. The Church will definitely not kill her but excommunication is an option that will give her the 'freedom' to
leave the Church and continue her corruption of souls that are already looking for means of destruction because people now seek out prophets that will tell them what they want to hear and not the Word of God as the Bible prophesied.
Sister Margaret Farley, May she be blessed. She wrote a good book. The Catholic Xa should be properly guided on how freedom of expression should be honoured. Even if they don't like what is said. The days of inquisition are gone forever. Sis Mag should not be burnt at the stake like they did to Saint Joan of Ark. He who destroys a book or seeks thereto is an enemy of the masses, the great majority. Let good sense prevail. If I can be availed of a hard copy of that "sex book," I will be glad.