The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has been chortled and snickered at for causing a book it condemned to go from virtual obscurity to a near best-seller almost overnight.
Even popular Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo criticized the Vatican in the pages of The Washington Post, asking sarcastically, “Have they seen ‘Footloose’ at the Vatican? Jeez.” (For those not up on 80’s movie trivia, he means that the minute you outlaw something it becomes attractive to many.)
So why would the CDF condemn Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics by Sr. Margaret Farley? Especially since the author herself wrote on Yale’s website “that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether.”
Well, somebody forgot to tell that to many Catholic theologians, because they’ve used the book in classrooms in Catholic colleges all across the country and as support for their own writings, sometimes challenging the teachings of the Catholic Church.
June 11, 2012 at 9:39 pm
We laugh because we believe
June 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
The mainstream media immediately reported that this book was becoming a bestseller, but – at best – it has had a few days of increase sales, precisely because it is being mentioned in the mainstream media. The novelty and notoriety of a theology textbook being in the secular newspapers is going to create a superficial and short-lived wave of interest among casual readers. But how many people are really going to read the whole dry, dusty, dreary book? In another week, they will be looking for the latest paperback novel by Stephen King. And the 'overnight best-seller' will be nothing more than yesterday's news.
June 12, 2012 at 10:15 pm
The "Footloose" reference is essentially the argument that laws create crime. And the only policy that's an argument for, is disenfranchising the moron who makes it. If we shouldn't forbid books because it attracts people to them, then we should legalize murder because it being illegal lets hitmen command higher prices.