Vatican criticizing Nun’s book?


Would these qualify …

Image from Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia (

Image from Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia (

Image from Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia (

Although the charisms of religious orders vary from missionary work to evangelization, the common public identifies a religious sister (or a nun) as a teacher.   They are not just another teacher; they also carry the responsibility and the honor of being a witness and a representative of the Catholic Church.   Graduates of parochial schools may remember the women who taught them as being overly harsh or compassionate.  Regardless, Catholic nuns are usually present in our world as teachers.

One such religious sister, Sr. Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M, is an educator.  She holds a PhD in Christian Ethics from Yale, where she is a professor emerita.  She is a religious sister in the Sisters of Mercy, whose website introduces them as:


So, why, according to the New York Times, Huffington Post, and the Associated Press, is this religious sister the target of scrutiny from the Vatican?

In 2006, she wrote the book Just Love:  A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.  According to


Though Just Love‘s particular focus is Christian sexual ethics, Farley’s framework is broad enough to have relevance for multiple traditions. Also covered are specific issues in sexual ethics, including same-sex relationships, marriage and family, divorce and second marriage, celibacy, and sex and its negativities.

So why the fuss?  Here’s where the issue lies:  Sr. Margaret’s perspective regarding these issues of sexual ethics deviate from those of the Roman Catholic Church.  In a statement released earlier this week from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (emphasis added) ,


In a statement, Sister Margaret said (emphasis added):

I have received the official Notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published in Rome, June 4, 2012. By it, I understand that my book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, has been judged to contain positions that are not in conformity with the hierarchical teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. I appreciate the efforts made by the Congregation and its consultants, over several years, to evaluate positions articulated in that book, and I do not dispute the judgment that some of the positions contained within it are not in accord with current official Catholic teaching. In the end, I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether.

Contrary to what other sources may say, the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith is not condemning Sr. Margaret Farley nor her writings.  When a religious sister of an order of Roman Catholic women religious writes a book, there is an expectation that she will represent the Catholic faith.  Right or wrong, when a man or woman is a consecrated religious brother, sister, or priest, people associate their statements and views regarding issues like this as a statement by the Catholic Church.  It is the responsibility of both the Church and for Sr. Margaret to clarify that her statements, while she is a Catholic religious sister, do not represent Catholic teaching.  Both parties met that responsibility.

Kristan Doerfler Siegel