Catholic theologian banned from giving talk because she supports gay marriage

[theHandpuppet]

Catholic theologian banned from giving talk over opposition to church teaching
Tina Beattie’s lecture to Catholic group in Edinburgh is cancelled after she signed letter supporting gay marriage
Andrew Brown
The Guardian, Thursday 25 September 2014

A prominent English Catholic theologian has been banned from lecturing on church property in Edinburgh because she has opposed the Catholic church’s teaching on sexual morality.

Tina Beattie, the professor of Catholic thought at Roehampton University in London, had a talk to a Catholic group in Edinburgh cancelled after the intervention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the Vatican’s watchdog on orthodoxy. Beattie has previously been forced to pull out of talks in San Diego, California, and Bristol after complaints from conservatives.

Archbishop Leo Cushley, of Edinburgh and St Andrews, wrote to the Newman Society, a lay Catholic group, telling them they should disinvite Beattie to give a lecture she had planned, and not advertise the event, in July this year. He has not responded to requests to justify his position beyond saying that Beattie “was known frequently to have called into question the church’s teaching”.

In 2012, Beattie signed a letter to the Times in favour of same-sex marriage, along with a number of other Christian intellectuals. At the time the Catholic church was campaigning as hard as it dared against the change, in both England and Scotland. Shortly after the letter appeared Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Cushley’s predecessor, was forced to resign after admitting improper behaviour with a number of his priests....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is what was once known as

the Spanish Inquisition (cue Monty Python reference here). Maybe nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition any more, but I guess we should expect the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to suppress any whiff of dissent. Nevertheless, for all of its desperate flailing with respect to doctrine I expect the Catholic Church eventually to go the way of a dinosaur in a tar pit.