(cheers and applause) now its worst part, folks s that sister farley, no jim, no, sister margaret farley, that's better, sister farley has a section in her book on how women have found great good in self-pleasuring. oh, is that how you help the poor by teaching them to master bait. i'm sorry w a guy in my subway car this morning had it down. no help. (applause) now folks the church has condemned sister farley's book saying masturbation is an intrinsically and grachly disordered action. wow. disordered. you got to be pretty bad at masturbation to mess up the order. (laughter) the bottom line is these nuns need to learn their place. which is at my desk. please welcome the head of network a national catholic social justice lobby sister simone campbell. thank you so much for being here. now now sister, you and your fellow nuns have clearly gone rogue, okay. your radical feminists. >> we're certainly oriented toward the needs of women and responding to their needs. if that's radical, i guess we are. but actually -- >> yes, yes, that's radical feminism. >> i don't think so. >> no, no t is. and

the vatican's doctrine office said just love by sister margaret farley reflects a quote "defective understanding" of church teaching on issues including masturbation, homosexuality, marriage and divorce. sister farley taught christian ethics at yale divinity school for more than 30 years. she said her book was not intended to be an expression of official catholic teaching, but rather an "exploration of contemporary interpretations." with this week's news, the book has shot up the bestsellers' charts. many lay catholics around the country have been rallying in support of u.s. nones -- nuns. last week, the umbrella group representing the majority of american catholic sisters pushed back against a vatican rebuke of them. in april, the vatican accused the leadership conference of women religious of having "serious doctrinal problems" and ordered the group to place itself under the authority of seattle's archbishop. conference leaders will go to rome tuesday for a meeting with church officials to discuss the situation. meanwhile at the vat cap, the investigation continues in the so-called "vatileaks"

. >> reporter: "just love" was written in 2006 by margaret farley. more tolerant view of sexual ethics. the vatican denounced the book saying it was in direct contradiction on sexuality and that comment pushed the book to the 16th spot. >> everyone agrees it is speculation. >> the president of loyola university in maryland and fellow theologian is one of her most prominent defenders. >> she wrote a new framework to think about sexual questions of sexual ethics which looks at justice rather than procreation or abstinence. >> reporter: she writes that masturbation could be beneficial for women but the idea was denounced saying masturbation was a gravely disordered action. farley says same sex relationships and homosexual acts can be just as beneficial but the church says those acts are contrary to the natural law. in her book she claims she doesn't believe divorce and remarriage should be prohibited. farley says the book was not intended to be an expression of current official catholic teaching nor was it amd specifically against this teaching. with th

there is no american nun that the vatican is more disappointed in than sister margaret a. farley recently turned into a best-selling author by condemning her book, "just love: a framework for christian sexual ethics." the book was published with little notice in 2006, but since it got condemned last week by the vatican, it's now a huge best seller. i got my copy last week, thanks to the vatican bringing it to my attention. the vatican got the book as soon as it was published, but it took them six years to figure out just how much they hated it. the office in the vatican that spends its time deciding which books to hate is called the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. that office has had a lot of name changes over the years, kind of like when our department of war became the department of defense or when the department of health education and welfare became the department of health and human services. until 1965, that vatican office was called the supreme sacred congregation of the holy office. and it still had its original title right up until 1908. the supreme sacred co