The church should ignore Sr. Farley’s deviancy? 

The Vatican has condemned a leading American nun for writing a book in which she praises female masturbation and approves divorce and gay sex and marriage, warning that the book must not be used by catholic educators.

The Vatican’s criticism of Sister Margaret Farley, a professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Yale University, comes amid escalating tension with America’s nuns, after the Holy See accused them of preaching “radical feminist” ideas.

She won points for Christian charity, hers and her sisters in religion and now calls in her chits in pursuit of compliance/silence by the Vatican?  Is that how it works?

The head of the Jesuit order in East Africa explained to other theologians gathered here last week that a simple gesture had different meanings in different cultures.

In the U.S., said the Rev. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, a man beating his hand against his chest is a liturgical expression of penance. Back home, he said, the same gesture is an expression of defiance.

“Perhaps,” the Rev. William O’Neill said to his fellow theologians, “that’s exactly what we should be signifying.”

The audience, all members of the Catholic Theological Society of America, applauded O’Neill’s aside with appreciation.

One does wonder.