A prominent Catholic nun continues to support the cause for gay marriage, despite being silenced by the Vatican last year over a book she penned.
The Vatican’s watchdog office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declared in June 2012 that Sister Margaret Farley’s book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” didn’t uphold Catholic moral teaching on several issues. They advised it shouldn’t be used as a Catholic teaching tool.
Irish American Sister Farley graduated, taught and served as a board trustee at the University of Detroit-Mercy. She is also a retired Yale Divinity School professor.
“You just can’t back down and say, I apologize, because it would contradict one’s integrity,” Sister Margaret Farley, 78, told about 400 people gathered last Friday at Mercy Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
“I didn’t decide never to talk again about the things that were problematic.”
The Vatican concluded that Farley’s positions on several issues, including supporting gay marriage, “are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality.”
On Friday Sister Farley spoke about how her gay nephew led her to understand gay relations and marriage, the Detroit Free Press reports.
“I have a beloved nephew who was all those things — wise, holy. And I’m absolutely certain that he was all those things because he grew up in our family,” Farley said. “Our family could never have condemned him.”
During her speech, Sister Farley said she hoped Pope Francis would be more open.
“He seems teachable,” she said, and hoped he will listen to the many Catholic women who call for change.
“I think that women at this juncture are in some way key, because, for example, we do have the problem that there are not enough priests,” Farley said. “I think that eventually it will be necessary to ordain married men and women, married or not. But how that development will finally take place, what the evolution will be, I don’t know.”
Sister Margaret Farley and Bob Simon discuss her book
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