The Crackdown

While outrage on behalf of Sister Margaret Farley, as in the treatment of Sister Elizabeth Johnson some months ago, may be appropriate, great good has emerged from both experiences. In both cases, rather than strike when the books were published, church authorities waited several years before they pounced. My guess is that they don’t really pay that much attention to theological books as they come out. Rather they wait for them to catch on, have influence, and be taught in the colleges. The someone somewhere writes to Rome warning high officials that the church’s truth is in danger.Then the crackdown becomes a public event, the media tell the  people in the pews what is happening. Students who have loved the books and teachers speak up. I worked on the Fordam campus for four years without meeting Elizabeth Johnson. Now I have read her book and have joined her fans. I have heard of Margaret Farley, but now I’ve had a long talk with one of her graduate students, her book Just Love is on my desk, and I’ll read it this weekend. The Washington Post today reports that overnight her Amazon sales ranking soared from 142,000 to 16. Thousands are talking about Farley’s ideas who had never of her before. This public reaction demonstrates that there is a great hunger among Christians and others for a sexual ethic that is grounded in the human experience of the 21st century as well as in the tradition of the church.

Link (here) to piece by Fr. Raymond Schroth, S.J. at America Magazine