Vatican Censors Nun's Book on Sexual Ethics

Sky Dancer

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A long-simmering conflict between the Vatican and American nuns erupted again on Monday when the Vatican's doctrinal office issued a scathing critique of a popular book on sexual ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, one of the first Catholics to teach at Yale Divinity School.

After two years of study, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a "notification" on Farley's Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, saying it contradicts Catholic doctrine on key issues such as gay marriage, homosexuality and divorce.

Coming just days after U.S. nuns rejected the Vatican's reasoning for a wholesale makeover, and a year after U.S. bishops sanctioned another nun theologian, the condemnation of Farley is the latest example of what critics see as a top-down attempt to muzzle women's voices and an obsession on sexual ethics.

Farley, who was the first woman professor and one of the first Catholics to teach at Yale Divinity School, says she is convinced that her positions "reflect a deep coherence with the central aims and insights" of Christian theology and tradition, and contends that the Vatican ignored the reasons and context that led to her conclusions

Vatican censors nun's book on sexual ethics | firstcoastnews.com

I'm interested in knowing if anyone has read this book and wants to comment on it.
 
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Hey Sky Duncer - AKA idiot.

What "religion" you partial to - a-wipe?

One of the 30K "protestant" cults?

Which one?

If you're an atheist - kindly fuck off.
 
A long-simmering conflict between the Vatican and American nuns erupted again on Monday when the Vatican's doctrinal office issued a scathing critique of a popular book on sexual ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, one of the first Catholics to teach at Yale Divinity School.

After two years of study, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a "notification" on Farley's Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, saying it contradicts Catholic doctrine on key issues such as gay marriage, homosexuality and divorce.

Coming just days after U.S. nuns rejected the Vatican's reasoning for a wholesale makeover, and a year after U.S. bishops sanctioned another nun theologian, the condemnation of Farley is the latest example of what critics see as a top-down attempt to muzzle women's voices and an obsession on sexual ethics.

Farley, who was the first woman professor and one of the first Catholics to teach at Yale Divinity School, says she is convinced that her positions "reflect a deep coherence with the central aims and insights" of Christian theology and tradition, and contends that the Vatican ignored the reasons and context that led to her conclusions

Vatican censors nun's book on sexual ethics | firstcoastnews.com

I'm interested in knowing if anyone has read this book and wants to comment on it.

At least they've moved beyond burning at the stake or else she'd be in big trouble.
 
Hey Sky Duncer - AKA idiot.

What "religion" you partial to - a-wipe?

One of the 30K "protestant" cults?

Which one?

If you're an atheist - kindly fuck off.

Yours is a pretty anal religion, I must say, particularly when it comes to women. Your church men are almost as afraid of women's sexuality as the moooslims are.
 
Hey Sky Duncer - AKA idiot.

What "religion" you partial to - a-wipe?

One of the 30K "protestant" cults?

Which one?

If you're an atheist - kindly fuck off.

She's Buddhist. She is rather vocal about it. Im surprised everyone doesnt know.
 
1) I see no censorship. Making Public statements that a certain book doesnt reflect Catholic Doctrine isn't censorship. I see no efforts by the Church to suppress the book in any way. Can you elaborate?

2) Catholic doctrine on sexual ethics aligns closely to the ethics proscribed in scripture and revelation. What exactly are this nun's arguments that her views are at all inline with Christianity? If she is teching anything then chastity before marriage, and fidelity afterwards, then she is teaching something contrary to Christian (Catholics included) Doctrine.
 
Yours is a pretty anal religion, I must say, particularly when it comes to women. Your church men are almost as afraid of women's sexuality as the moooslims are.

So the Faithful Catholics have large families because they are afraid of women's sexuality?

Is there any man on earth that is afraid of women's sexuality? I dont know a single man, excluding my gay friends, who doesn't welcome women's sexuality as often as the woman in their lives allow it.

I know there is some myth out there that people have to be promiscuous to enjoy sexuality, but quite honestly, that's not true. In fact, most people I talk to about it (granted it's not a large group since im not really that interested in the sex lives of others) have always said that they much prefer exploring their sexuality with spouse than any other encounter. Sex is the glue to the mariage. Without the feelings of absolute trust, oneness, love, etc established before hand, sex is meaningless.

It's the difference between a truly sacred experience and a profane crass one.
 
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I am interested in knowing how this is censorship.

All the headlines call it censorship. It has to do with sanctions the Vatican has inflicted.



"In an interview Friday with the National Catholic Reporter, LCWR president Sr. Pat Farrell, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Iowa said that in raising doctrinal and theological issues the nuns in her organization have also been reflecting a wider conversation among Catholics in the church -- and one that often finds no other outlet in officialdom.

"The insinuation that I think many people could draw from reading that Vatican document is that if we raise those questions, we’re unfaithful to the church," Farrell said. "That’s not true. And I don’t think that’s really fair. I think, in fact, that that is a sign of our deepest faithfulness to the church -- questions that the people of God need to raise, that we need to talk about together in a climate of genuine dialogue."

The LCWR response comes as Benedict faces an enormous public relations headache over the leak of sensitive documents that reveal his Roman curia to be a dysfunctional bureaucracy riven by backroom plotting and politicking.

In pointed contrast to the unflattering reports coming out of the Vatican in recent weeks, the LCWR said the stand-off must be "addressed by the entire church community in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and integrity.”


Religion News Service | Faith | Leaders & Institutions | U.S. nuns rip Vatican for ‘unsubstantiated accusations’
 
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I am interested in knowing how this is censorship.

All the headlines call it censorship. It has to do with sanctions the Vatican has inflicted.



"In an interview Friday with the National Catholic Reporter, LCWR president Sr. Pat Farrell, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Iowa said that in raising doctrinal and theological issues the nuns in her organization have also been reflecting a wider conversation among Catholics in the church -- and one that often finds no other outlet in officialdom.

"The insinuation that I think many people could draw from reading that Vatican document is that if we raise those questions, we’re unfaithful to the church," Farrell said. "That’s not true. And I don’t think that’s really fair. I think, in fact, that that is a sign of our deepest faithfulness to the church -- questions that the people of God need to raise, that we need to talk about together in a climate of genuine dialogue."

The LCWR response comes as Benedict faces an enormous public relations headache over the leak of sensitive documents that reveal his Roman curia to be a dysfunctional bureaucracy riven by backroom plotting and politicking.

In pointed contrast to the unflattering reports coming out of the Vatican in recent weeks, the LCWR said the stand-off must be "addressed by the entire church community in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and integrity.”


Religion News Service | Faith | Leaders & Institutions | U.S. nuns rip Vatican for ‘unsubstantiated accusations’

You should really seek psychiatric help for your anti-Catholic obsession.
 
Published in 2006, Just Love has received widespread praise from Christians of all denominations and has been used as a textbook in college courses on sexual ethics. For it, Farley won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Religion from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2008.

Vatican censors nun's book on sexual ethics
 
Once again the Vatican is going after one of the most serious threats to the Roman Catholic Church, a group that threatens to destabilize the very foundation of the faith and that has already alienated millions of former believers. Apostates worthy of denunciation on a grand scale.

Pedophile priests?

Nope. It’s those crafty no-good nuns. You know, the devious ladies who for generations have staffed schools and hospitals, working among the poor for a pittance and carrying on in a way that brings shame to the church. It just has to stop.

Vatican enforcers – also known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – took two years to study Farley’s book and proclaim it out of bounds. They’ve been on a roll, most recently raking American nuns over the coals for emphasizing poverty relief and compassion instead of working to roll back the abortion and contraceptive rights that have improved the lives of American women of all faiths.

And those priests who sexually assault boys? They still get the full protection and coddling of the Church, including payments to hasten their departure from the priesthood. Investigations drag on for years, or are kicked under the rug.

Farley is retired from teaching, so the Vatican has no further sanctions coming her way, just the denunciation of her for a book that came out six years ago.

Glad the enforcers got that out of their system.



Vatican officials go after the real enemy
 
Once again the Vatican is going after one of the most serious threats to the Roman Catholic Church, a group that threatens to destabilize the very foundation of the faith and that has already alienated millions of former believers. Apostates worthy of denunciation on a grand scale.

Pedophile priests?

Nope. It’s those crafty no-good nuns. You know, the devious ladies who for generations have staffed schools and hospitals, working among the poor for a pittance and carrying on in a way that brings shame to the church. It just has to stop.

Vatican enforcers – also known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – took two years to study Farley’s book and proclaim it out of bounds. They’ve been on a roll, most recently raking American nuns over the coals for emphasizing poverty relief and compassion instead of working to roll back the abortion and contraceptive rights that have improved the lives of American women of all faiths.

And those priests who sexually assault boys? They still get the full protection and coddling of the Church, including payments to hasten their departure from the priesthood. Investigations drag on for years, or are kicked under the rug.

Farley is retired from teaching, so the Vatican has no further sanctions coming her way, just the denunciation of her for a book that came out six years ago.

Glad the enforcers got that out of their system.



Vatican officials go after the real enemy

Since you're not Catholic yourself, why do you care? Why are you so obsessed with Catholicism? Seek some help.
 
I was raised in the RCC. I have many Catholic friends, and I attend a retreat twice a year that is held at a Catholic retreat center, Santa Sabina in San Rafael.

I also co-facilitated "Raised Catholic" groups for women who had left the Church, with the goal to either reconcile or find a living spirituality in the present.

The woman I facilitate with has wanted to be a priest her whole life, and she would be a wonderful one.
 
"Just Love"... Often when "Christians" appeal to "love" it's to promote unbiblical and unloving doctrines.
 
This book was not intended to be a "Catholic book", even though it happened to have been written by a Catholic nun, one who taught at Yale.
 
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 and appointed three bishops to carry it out.

The crackdown on Farley, a top American theologian, will likely fuel greater resentment at Rome among more liberal-minded American nuns.

Sister Margaret Farley's Book 'Just Love' Criticized By Vatican
 
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 and appointed three bishops to carry it out.

The crackdown on Farley, a top American theologian, will likely fuel greater resentment at Rome among more liberal-minded American nuns.

Sister Margaret Farley's Book 'Just Love' Criticized By Vatican


Liberal minded American nuns---What is next--Freethinking Cardinals?

Think about it, Sky. The nuns are not suppose to change church doctrine, they are supposed to help maintain the doctrines. They are like female guardians of the faith. Not their theologians.
 
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 and appointed three bishops to carry it out.

The crackdown on Farley, a top American theologian, will likely fuel greater resentment at Rome among more liberal-minded American nuns.

Sister Margaret Farley's Book 'Just Love' Criticized By Vatican


Liberal minded American nuns---What is next--Freethinking Cardinals?

Think about it, Sky. The nuns are not suppose to change church doctrine, they are supposed to help maintain the doctrines. They are like female guardians of the faith. Not their theologians.

Well, this book is well recieved by Christians in and out of the Catholic Church. The Pope is out of touch with the faithful in the US.

Sister Margaret Farley has a PHD and teaches Ethics at Yale Divinity School. She is certainly in a position to influence Christians.


ever there were a method of moral reasoning on sexual ethics that is desperately needed in the Catholic Church today, it is the one proposed by Margaret Farley.

"Perhaps it is fitting that the attack by the Vatican on Farley’s work has come just after the Sunday of Pentecost, the time when Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles (Acts 2:1-4). The major spiritual gift of the Holy Spirit is wisdom. And, as noted above, the search for moral wisdom on sexual ethics is the overarching goal of Margaret Farley’s work.

The Catholic Church desperately needs to gain moral wisdom in its sexual ethics. The church around the world has been wracked by scandals over child sexual abuse, and the crisis is far from over. The Catholic Church’s continues to reject homosexual unions in marriage as one of the gifts of God’s creation and therefore good, and the full equality of women in ordination to the priesthood has not yet been achieved. "

The question really is whether, finally, the Vatican even belongs to the Catholic Church as it is emerging in this dynamic time. This was, in fact, a question considered very seriously by the Catholic Church in the 1960’s. In 1962, Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) not only to bring the Church’s message more directly into dialogue with the modern world, but also to rethink the nature of the Church, the world and the relationship between the two. During the conference, the church redefined its role; the church was now to be seen as the “People of God.”



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...rgaret-farley/2012/06/05/gJQAPi5bGV_blog.html
 
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Well Sky, that is a nice way to approach Catholicism if it was philosophy that needed correcting.

But it is a religion that assumed correct upon issue. Whenever the leaders of a religion consider changing its doctrine to something that is less aligned with the original theology and concpets, the theologians risk admitting that they can be wrong.

Christianity is designed such that the theologians are always correct--because they speak for god who is always correct. Even the admission of a misinterpretation of some passage in the bible creates a plausible argument about the infalliablity in the church. In short, Sister Farley is a Heretic to the christian faith.

And those Catholics that would claim the pope is not in line with the faith are lying possesed fools!

The source of truth in Catholicism is the Pope and those he agrees with.

Thats basically christianity
 

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