Another PR gift from the CDF

Margaret Farley’s Just Love: A Framework for a Christian Sexual Ethics is at #16 on the current Amazon sales list. When is the last time a sane, scholarly, carefully argued and theologically rich book of sexual ethics ranked that high?

I don’t know, but I can’t imagine it was recent. (Four out of the top five on the Amazon list are versions of Fifty Shades of Gray. If only those readers would open up Farley!) To make matters even stranger, the book is six years old and used mostly in seminaries and at religious institutions.

The flurry of interest was provoked by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. On Monday, the Vatican body released a document criticizing the book, barring Catholic institutions from using it and accusing Farley of “confusing the faithful.” The CDF objects specifically to three areas of argument: Farley’s treatment of masturbation, divorce and homosexuality.