Vatikan mengecam buku kontroversial karya suster Katolik di Amerika Serikat yang mengangkat masturbasi, homoseksualitas, dan perceraian.

Kantor ortodoks Vatikan mengatakan buku Suster Margaret Farley berjudul, “Hanya Cinta: Kerangka Etika Seksualitas Kristiani,” mengancam keyakinan umat.

Suster Margaret Farley sendiri mengakui bahwa tulisannya melenceng dari ajaran resmi namun ia menyatakan buku itu tidak mewakil gereja.

Bulan April lalu, Vatikan memerintahkan reformasi organisasi payung biarawati Amerika yang dituduh melenceng dari doktrin soal aborsi dan homoseksualitas.

“Masturbasi tidak menyentuh pertanyaan moral sama sekali… Banyak wanita yang menganggap hal ini sebagai perbuatan untuk menyenangkan diri sendiri…,” tulis suster Farley.

Vatikan mengatakan menurut ajaran gereja, masturbasi adalah “perilaku yang sangat menyimpang.”

Dukungan bagi Suster Farley

Kajian tentang buku ini memakan waktu bertahun-tahun.

Vatikan berulang kali mendesak agar Farley mengubah pernyataan dalam buku agar sesuai dengan doktrin gereja.

Ia menolak dan dalam suratnya ia mengatakan buku itu tidak dimaksudkan untuk mewakili ajaran gereja namun membantu para pembaca berpikir sesuai etika seksual dalam konteks keadilan, kebijakan, dan kasih.

“Saya tidak menyangkal bahwa sejumlah aspek dalam buku itu tidak sesuai dengan ajaran Katolik,” kata Farley dalam pernyataan yang dikeluarkan hari Senin (04/06).

Sejumlah pakar teologi Katolik juga mengeluarkan pernyataan dukungan bagi Farley, anggota organisasi biarawati Sisters of Mercy dan profesor emiritus fakultas keagamaan Universitas Yale.

Suster Patricia McDermott, presiden Sisters of Mercy di Amerika, menyatakan “penyesalan mendalam” atas tanggapan Vatikan terhadap buku tersebut.

sumber : www.bbc.co.ukThe Vatican has criticised sharply a 2005 book by a US theologian and nun on sexual ethics, where she defends gay rights and equal marriage.

The BBC reports that the Holy See’s Orthodoxy Office said that Sister Margaret Farley’s book, Just Love, posed ‘grave harm’ to the faithful, and that her ideas on masturbation, homosexuality, equal marriage and remarriage were in ‘direct contradiction’ to traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality.

In addition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has declared that her writings betrayed a ‘defective understanding of the objective nature of natural moral law.’

The Vatican has banned the use of the book by Catholic teachers, in a notification signed by the department head Cardinal William Levanda and approved by the Pope.

Sister Farley has defended her work, however, saying that the ideas they contain were entirely coherent with theological tradition. In her book, she writes that ‘same-sex oriented persons as well as their activities can and should be respected.’ Her book also argues for equal marriage as a means for reducing hatred against and stigmatisation of gay people.

Today’s statement by the Vatican however reaffirms its position that homosexual acts are ‘intrinsically disordered’ and ‘contrary to natural law.’ Marriage, it says, can only be the union between a man and a woman.

In a statement today, Sister Farley, who has eleven honorary degrees to her credit, and is an emeritus professor at Yale, said that she used a ‘criteria (sic) of justice’ in evaluating sexual morality. ”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 said.

Recently, the Vatican has been highly critical of US nuns, moving so far as to denounce the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent some 80% of 57,000 American nuns, as becoming ‘feminist’ and ‘politicised,’ promoting unorthodox ideas on sexual morality and challenging the authority of (male) bishops

source : www.pinknews.co.uk