Vatican Shocks Consecrated Virgins With New Ruling On Virginity
The U.S. Association of Consecrated Virgins (USACV) said it is “deeply disappointed” at new rules issued by the Vatican that appear to say consecrated virgins don’t need to be virgins.
The 39-page document, Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago, published on July 4, 2018 by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, serves as a new instructional on consecrated virginity.
The group has taken umbrage with Section 88 of the document which states: “The call to give witness to the church’s virginal, spousal and fruitful love for Christ is not reducible to the symbol of physical integrity,” it says. “Thus to have kept her body in perfect continence or to have practiced the virtue of chastity in an exemplary way, while of great importance with regard to discernment, are not essential prerequisites in the absence of which admittance to consecration is not possible.”
The USACV responded it was “shocking to hear from Mother Church that physical virginity no longer will be considered an essential prerequisite for consecration to a life of virginity.” “When a virgin offers her virginity to Christ, she offers her integral virginity–physical and spiritual. A woman who does not have the gift of virginity to offer may offer a complete gift of self to Christ, but she is not offering a gift of virginity,” the USACV stated. “A gift of one’s integral virginity to Christ is a gift of both body and spirit, and one cannot offer to Christ what one does not have to offer.”
They said that the new rules do not change the prerequisites for consecration as stated in the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, which says: “In the case of virgins leading lives in the world it is required that they have never celebrated marriage and that they have not publicly or manifestly lived in a state contrary to chastity.”
The group noted that “some egregious violations of chastity” while they do not violate virginity, do disqualify women from receiving consecration.
A consecrated virgin is a woman who pledges perpetual virginity and dedicates her life to God. Unlike a nun, she does not live in a community and leads a secular life, providing for her own needs. There are around 5,000 consecrated virgins in 42 countries, including 250 in the United States. Orders of virgins were present in the early Church, but they petered out by the medieval era. The vocation was revived in 1970 under Pope Paul VI.
“Without virginity, there’s no vocation to the Order of Consecrated Virgins anymore,” said Therese Ivers, an American canon lawyer as well as a consecrated virgin. “For Catholics, virginity is not defined as the ‘physical integrity’ (of the hymen),” she said. “Virginity is lost only when there is willed genital activity. Whether this willed genital activity is done alone or with another, then virginity is irreparably lost.”
A source within the Order of Consecrated Virgins who spoke under the condition of anonymity told Life Site News that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith might not uphold the Instruction.
“I know hundreds of consecrated virgins who weren’t consulted, but I also know the two who work in the Vatican who were presumably consulted and don’t believe virginity is possible,” the source said. “One wrote in Sequela Christi (a Vatican publication) that a one-night stand is acceptable (in the past of a candidate) as long as it’s not publicly known.”
The source described the new guidelines as an attack on her order, on marriage, and on the Church itself. She was particularly anguished by a passage stating that a consecrated virgin can be dispensed from her obligations, which means that human marriage and sex is still an option.
“Consecrated virgins are living embodiment of the Church,” she said. “To be a consecrated virgin means to be a bride of Christ. This is the only vocation that claims to have an indissoluble nuptial bond with Christ. Now we are saying that Christ can have a divorce.”
All this brings us to several questions:
- What is a virgin? Is it a woman who has never had any kind of “willed” sexual activity with anyone, including herself? Is she a woman with an intact hymen? Or, can a virgin be a woman who has experienced sexual release–even intercourse–so long as it is not publicly known, i.e., “they have not publicly or manifestly lived in a state contrary to chastity.”
- What “egregious violations of chastity” would disqualify a woman with an intact hymen from becoming a consecrated virgin?
- Why isn’t the Order of Consecrated Virgins open to men? Couldn’t a man pledge his virginity or chastity to Christ?
What troubles me beyond the legalistic nit-picking, is the notion that if a candidate has experienced sex with a man, and she’s kept it secret or others haven’t found out or known about it, her membership in the order is OK.
Is anything hidden from Christ, including our secrets?
This double standard of sex–whether it’s known or hidden–has gotten the Catholic Church in a lot of trouble in recent decades. Bishops and cardinals pressuring seminarians and priests for sex; gay priests with active sex lives who pretend they’re straight; well-liked, long-time lesbian or gay employees that get married and are subsequently fired. Everyone knows what’s going on, but so long as it isn’t “known” everything is fine.
A woman’s gift of her virginity is a beautiful gift. The church or its leadership shouldn’t sully it with nuanced valuations.
