![]() As a feminist, she reminds Catholics that their tradition should make its global option for women more consistent, more explicit and more effective, especially in the areas of sex, motherhood, marriage and family.”Īfter the 2012 notification from the C.D.F., America solicited responses from prominent Catholic theologians James Bretzke, S.J., Richard Gaillardetz and Julie Hanlon Rubio, all of whom expressed concern about the way Farley and her work had been treated. Just Love had received positive reviews upon its release, including a 2006 review in America by Lisa Sowle Cahill, who called it “the product of years of experience, reflection, scholarship and wisdom.” As a theologian, she wrote, “Farley gives us a social ethic of sex that incorporates both the biblical option for the poor and the orientation of Catholic social thought to the universal common good. “This is what my book, Just Love, is about.” ![]() “Whether through interpretation of biblical texts, or through an attempt to understand ‘concrete reality’ (an approach at the heart of ‘natural law’), the fact that Christians (and others) have achieved new knowledge and deeper understanding of human embodiment and sexuality seems to require that we at least examine the possibility of development in sexual ethics,” she wrote. Sister Farley released a statement to the National Catholic Reporter soon after, explaining her rationale for writing the book. decreed that Just Love “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.” ![]() ![]() decreed that the book “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.” notification stated that Farley’s book “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality” and “is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church.” Though Farley was not silenced or prevented from teaching in Catholic institutions, the C.D.F. The notification was a publisher’s dream-the book shot to the top of the best-seller lists for a time-but was an unhappy moment for the American Catholic theological community. concerning her 2006 book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. Farley, R.S.M., found herself the subject of an investigation and official notification from the C.D.F. One of the more public examples of that long-standing tension arose in 2012, when Margaret A. It can be easy to forget that the situation was rather different less than a generation ago, when many theologians-American scholars among them-found themselves in a more adversarial relationship with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. When one hears news out of the Vatican these days concerning Catholic theologians, more often than not the names that appear are authors seeking new ways of doing theology or of nuancing traditional magisterial teachings in light of contemporary understandings of human anthropology and culture-be that around synodality, same-sex relationships or the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate.
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