British theologian Tina Beattie was prohibited from speaking on church property in the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in Scotland, the Tablet reported in September. Archbishop Leo Cushley said that he was following orders from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) when he cancelled Beattie’s speaking engagement at the Edinburgh Newman Association.

Beattie wrote to Cushley to point out that the CDF was behind the cancellation of one of her other speaking engagements in 2012. She was the sole signatory—out of 27 priests and theologians—criticized for signing an ad in the Times of London in support of Catholics’ right to follow their consciences on the subject of same-sex marriage. Her lecture at the University of San Diego was also cancelled that year. Beattie’s letter to the archbishop continued, “This role of Catholic advocacy entails not mindless repetition of everything that comes from Rome, but a faithful endeavor to show that the Catholic theological tradition has … a mature capacity for reasoned debate and diversity.”