The reason for my comments was because I have just finished doing HTML coding for a patron which was quite difficult. Then I plunged into this definitive article on the changes to Canon Law & my mind became mush after all that data & information.
Best thing the Church could do about "Consecrated Virgins" is to again reserve this tradition to cloistered monasteries (the type of association that they had prior to Vatican II) rather than making distinctions about whether chaste celibate devout lay women in the parishes are virgins or have ever "lived in public or manifest violation of chastity" and providing very different pastoral support for them on that basis. Parishes are full of people who are not candidates for other more formal "consecrated life" for numerous reasons of circumstances, disability, age, poverty etc but live a very similar way of life and spirituality as "consecrated virgins" and are not rejected by Jesus as brides in the one Bride Church. They are the ones who need support to find others to be "family" with and journey with in similar vocation, and few would welcome sexualized, often humiliating categorization about virginity. One of the most troubling things is it teaches clergy to view chaste celibate women as sexually new or used and value them on that basis, and believe it's meritorious to do so and teach others to do so.
St Paul gives advice (probably to fathers of daughters) about whether "to marry one's virgin or keep one's virgin" and says only "regarding virgins, I have no instruction from the Lord" however each father should do as he pleases, especially when a crucial time is approaching, which in cultural context would mean that the girl is getting past the age for marrying. In the earliest Christian texts (such as "Church Orders") ecclesially recognizing "virgins" consecrating themselves to Christ (which was conceived as something they did themself, explicitly not something the bishop did to them) very often "regarding virgins I have no instruction from the Lord" was specifically quoted. Paul didn't create an institution of consecrated virgins and none such began to exist for at least a century after Paul's death. The only route to claiming Paul instituted consecration of virgins was via the pseudepigraphic novella "The Acts of Paul and Thecla". A handful of virgins apparently did enter the "order of widows" during the period before there was such a thing as an institution of consecrated virginity. There is a possible allusion to such in St Ignatius of Antioch, and Tertullian complains about that arrangement as improper. No serious scholars think that "consecration of virgins" as such dates from apostolic times.
I understand the desire you seem to be voicing i.e. support, reverence and recognition for chaste celibate people in a parish. That would be great.
It does not follow, however, that the consecration of virgins instructs the clergy to value women based on their sexual history. If a cleric manifests that attitude it would be symptomatic of his own immaturity or destructive thinking.
The consecration of virgins aught to raise the dignity of all women no matter their sexual history. For Christians, virginity is not a trophy, but a sign of a coming eschatological reality for all the baptized of which the world could use a reminder, in my estimation.
Celebrating a woman’s desire to consecrate her virginity publicly should invite men and women to ask, “am I or have I treated myself or others in a way that is in harmony with the virginal consummation of heaven with God?”. Reverence for the freedom and totality represented in virginity, should lead to more reverence for the freedom and healing manifested in all chaste living.
First, virginity is not a sign. It is not something visible. It looks like a woman, indistinct from other unmarried women. The freedom of chastity and single hearted totality for Christ does not depend upon literal virginity by any means, nor does Christ teach a preferential option for innocent virgins with no need of repentance. We who are Baptized are each brides of Christ because of being members of the one virgin bride Church; the virginity of the individual Christian is not the basis for being His bride. Talking about virginity is being public about something sexual and invisible. It's never seemed to me like a necessary way to categorize people, and has always seemed an inappropriate way to discuss people.
Saying that you want categorizing women as to whether they are virgins and honoring them on that basis to raise the dignity of all women cannot make it so. Saying that the virginity of individual members of the Faithful is relevant to their relationship with Christ the Bridegroom cannot make it so. In ancient Greece, parthenos was the absolutely standard way for a man to refer to his unmarried daughter of marriageable age, but dads don't call their daughters virgins in our world, nor do schools call girl students virgins, nor do parishes refer to adolescent girls as virgins.
Saying to someone who wasn't taught about virginity in their family (I was very truly not) who is humiliated to be rejected for vocation on the basis of the sins of her youth (which occur today so often in deep ignorance of traditional chastity/virginity values) that it's for the sake of HER DIGNITY is incomprehensible, certainly incomprehensible from a Gospel perspective. Why is my dignity enhanced by being in a bad category that (by the logic of he consecrated virgin tradition, see the ways the ancient Church dealt with "fallen virgins") permanently implies having betrayed Christ the Bridegroom? I have experienced so much horror and grief. The Gospels do not see fit to tell us about the virginity of anyone other than His Mother, to establish that God alone is His Father. His own invitation to chastity for the kingdom of heaven is based on the model of becoming a eunuch, not remaining a virgin. Becoming a eunuch need not imply virginity. "Consecrated virgins" are not of apostolic origin as are consecrated widows--an institution no one sees as necessary to exist perpetually, and neither is the Church obliged to have a form of consecrated life based on virginity. And as I have said, they are not any more symbolic of the Church to me than any other Catholic women.
The importance of virginity in honor culture in ancient times and even today has a flipside: honor culture is shame culture, the other side of the same coin. I don't see it as possible to exalt the honorableness of virginity without incurring this dynamic, though some are turning a blind eye, I have even been told by multiple priests who have a taboo against admitting the negative flipside of virginity, "there is no such thing as a never married woman who is not a virgin". If that were so then neither could we reason about the situation of "fallen women" (as ancient people clearly did) nor whether women "ever lived in public or manifest violation of chastity" be an exclusion criteria for individual consecration of women parishioners. A great deal of scholarship in recent decades explores the anthrolpology and logic of such cultures, which work differently from western cultures based on a legal frame of innocence or guilt. In the ancient world this shame flipside of virginity was obvious (and known to girls, though overseen by fathers). So was the role of females' virginity in fathers' and bridegrooms' honor, which ancient peoples saw as honoring Christ if they transferred the same way of thinking.
In ancient Greek, a woman who has never been married is normatively called a virgin, parthenos--and in Greek she was NOT called a woman, gyne, indeed that word also means wife. Circa 2nd and 3rd century some Christians discussing the Blessed Virgin Mary and "the Virgin Eve" who is described as "woman" from the time of her creation, argued that a virgin is also a woman. Nevertheless during the first phase of the Church, a woman who remained unmarried would not normally be referred to as a woman. She was a virgin. To call her something else would leave room for people to think something non-honorable about her, and at the time virginity was the very crux of honor for girls and their fathers. That remained the social reality for a long time.
In early Christian times people usually did not have a lot of freedom to remain unmarried--this was not only an issue for a woman whose future was controlled by her father (and might have a right of refusal over a specific bridegroom, but NOT a right of refusal over getting married), but under Roman law since the time of Augustus (the "Julian Laws on Adultery") male citizens were obliged to marry by a certain age or else be penalized. If I recall correctly, that was rescinded about a year after Christianity was legalized. There was significant public chafing against the "Julian Laws" and for Christians that was about the desire to remain in celibacy if they so chose.
My impression is that quite a lot of the spread of desire to remain chastely celibate and the glorification of virginity in that context was connected to and fostered by the pseudepigraphic "acts of Paul and Thecla". Due to her supposed friendship with St Paul, Thecla was THE important female saint in early Greek Christianity (and remained the key female saint for early monasticism). Whether there was a real Iconian hermit Thecla is uninvestigable, but her story is clearly highly legendary, as well as irregular (she baptizes herself! and her "martyrdom" isn't exactly; she survives attempted murder multiple times, escaping rapists the final time in her extreme old age by being absorbed into a rock face).
Virginity is significant for literal marriage. In heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Some people see the 144k male "virgins" in Revelation as literal virgins, but they seem to be the same referred to earlier which meant the whole people of God, figuratively as "virgins" they are those who had been faithful. Yes, there is a lot more of a case to be made for charity to be the key thing in heaven. About heaven, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and people speculate many different things. No one will have the sins of their youth define them or held against them in heaven and how can "behold, I make all things new, says the Lord" not include women?
Honestly, it is cruelly nonsensical to claim that celebrating a woman's virginity (imagined as a "thing" apparently, which she can consecrate; personally I always and only think of consecrating one's person, and one's person is inalienable, one cannot "lose" being a person) and attaching a lot of exalted meaning to her on that basis, doesn't affect how clergy and laity feel about and value whether celibate women are virgins. I have had many years of humiliating experiences (and sometimes panic attacks) with clergy and laity who have been taught to think about whether celibate women are virgins. I have wept and wept. I have no idea why people can't see that an exalted importance of NOT HAVING SINNED IN THE FIRST PLACE (virginity) is the opposite of a beacon of hope to repentant women. It can be devastating. It implies that the damage done by a man to a woman is permanent, spiritually profound, shamefully defines her within the Christian community regardless of repentance and living in permanent chastity. I have lasting scars of extreme anxiety and panic from experiences with clergy who saw literal virginity as central to female celibacy. I feel so much shame in my parish where one of my friends was made a "consecrated virgin" that I just double over at Mass a lot of the time.
Thank you for the canon law explanations. It would appear not much has changed. Total authority in many of these resides with the Bishop. Totalitarianism. If the Bishop is in any way flawed, so go the rules. It needs another revision.
Well said Eugene....This is one of the most astonishing issues here. The Holy See relies – for better or worse – on the local ordinaries! Huge risk, I find this plain absurd. Since when are local bishops, flawless and infallible!?
My point exactly- let alone how flawless and infallible the BISHOPS are, to rely solely on THEM? What if they themselves are the authors of evil or its cover up?
The most surprising of these changes is to Canon 699 §2, which does not have a corresponding change in the Eastern Code (perhaps we aren't as trusted), which will enable a Major Superior to be able to essentially eject any member of a community for a "lawful reason". This certainly reduces the transparency required since they only need "confirmation". What the last couple of decades has demonstrated is that the Church at all levels is in desperate need for much greater transparency and openness in her governance. This change has the feeling of the closing of the ranks.
Also, what is a confirmation in practice? A note to the Secretary saying that x was expelled for reason y? Or just x was expelled?
I have seen religious in formation being expelled for the flimiest of of excuses, and now this may be extended to those in a permanent state - such as solemn vows. And what will it mean for those who are incardinated into those communities?
Gnarly!
The reason for my comments was because I have just finished doing HTML coding for a patron which was quite difficult. Then I plunged into this definitive article on the changes to Canon Law & my mind became mush after all that data & information.
Best thing the Church could do about "Consecrated Virgins" is to again reserve this tradition to cloistered monasteries (the type of association that they had prior to Vatican II) rather than making distinctions about whether chaste celibate devout lay women in the parishes are virgins or have ever "lived in public or manifest violation of chastity" and providing very different pastoral support for them on that basis. Parishes are full of people who are not candidates for other more formal "consecrated life" for numerous reasons of circumstances, disability, age, poverty etc but live a very similar way of life and spirituality as "consecrated virgins" and are not rejected by Jesus as brides in the one Bride Church. They are the ones who need support to find others to be "family" with and journey with in similar vocation, and few would welcome sexualized, often humiliating categorization about virginity. One of the most troubling things is it teaches clergy to view chaste celibate women as sexually new or used and value them on that basis, and believe it's meritorious to do so and teach others to do so.
St Paul gives advice (probably to fathers of daughters) about whether "to marry one's virgin or keep one's virgin" and says only "regarding virgins, I have no instruction from the Lord" however each father should do as he pleases, especially when a crucial time is approaching, which in cultural context would mean that the girl is getting past the age for marrying. In the earliest Christian texts (such as "Church Orders") ecclesially recognizing "virgins" consecrating themselves to Christ (which was conceived as something they did themself, explicitly not something the bishop did to them) very often "regarding virgins I have no instruction from the Lord" was specifically quoted. Paul didn't create an institution of consecrated virgins and none such began to exist for at least a century after Paul's death. The only route to claiming Paul instituted consecration of virgins was via the pseudepigraphic novella "The Acts of Paul and Thecla". A handful of virgins apparently did enter the "order of widows" during the period before there was such a thing as an institution of consecrated virginity. There is a possible allusion to such in St Ignatius of Antioch, and Tertullian complains about that arrangement as improper. No serious scholars think that "consecration of virgins" as such dates from apostolic times.
I understand the desire you seem to be voicing i.e. support, reverence and recognition for chaste celibate people in a parish. That would be great.
It does not follow, however, that the consecration of virgins instructs the clergy to value women based on their sexual history. If a cleric manifests that attitude it would be symptomatic of his own immaturity or destructive thinking.
The consecration of virgins aught to raise the dignity of all women no matter their sexual history. For Christians, virginity is not a trophy, but a sign of a coming eschatological reality for all the baptized of which the world could use a reminder, in my estimation.
Celebrating a woman’s desire to consecrate her virginity publicly should invite men and women to ask, “am I or have I treated myself or others in a way that is in harmony with the virginal consummation of heaven with God?”. Reverence for the freedom and totality represented in virginity, should lead to more reverence for the freedom and healing manifested in all chaste living.
I plead “both and”.
First, virginity is not a sign. It is not something visible. It looks like a woman, indistinct from other unmarried women. The freedom of chastity and single hearted totality for Christ does not depend upon literal virginity by any means, nor does Christ teach a preferential option for innocent virgins with no need of repentance. We who are Baptized are each brides of Christ because of being members of the one virgin bride Church; the virginity of the individual Christian is not the basis for being His bride. Talking about virginity is being public about something sexual and invisible. It's never seemed to me like a necessary way to categorize people, and has always seemed an inappropriate way to discuss people.
Saying that you want categorizing women as to whether they are virgins and honoring them on that basis to raise the dignity of all women cannot make it so. Saying that the virginity of individual members of the Faithful is relevant to their relationship with Christ the Bridegroom cannot make it so. In ancient Greece, parthenos was the absolutely standard way for a man to refer to his unmarried daughter of marriageable age, but dads don't call their daughters virgins in our world, nor do schools call girl students virgins, nor do parishes refer to adolescent girls as virgins.
Saying to someone who wasn't taught about virginity in their family (I was very truly not) who is humiliated to be rejected for vocation on the basis of the sins of her youth (which occur today so often in deep ignorance of traditional chastity/virginity values) that it's for the sake of HER DIGNITY is incomprehensible, certainly incomprehensible from a Gospel perspective. Why is my dignity enhanced by being in a bad category that (by the logic of he consecrated virgin tradition, see the ways the ancient Church dealt with "fallen virgins") permanently implies having betrayed Christ the Bridegroom? I have experienced so much horror and grief. The Gospels do not see fit to tell us about the virginity of anyone other than His Mother, to establish that God alone is His Father. His own invitation to chastity for the kingdom of heaven is based on the model of becoming a eunuch, not remaining a virgin. Becoming a eunuch need not imply virginity. "Consecrated virgins" are not of apostolic origin as are consecrated widows--an institution no one sees as necessary to exist perpetually, and neither is the Church obliged to have a form of consecrated life based on virginity. And as I have said, they are not any more symbolic of the Church to me than any other Catholic women.
The importance of virginity in honor culture in ancient times and even today has a flipside: honor culture is shame culture, the other side of the same coin. I don't see it as possible to exalt the honorableness of virginity without incurring this dynamic, though some are turning a blind eye, I have even been told by multiple priests who have a taboo against admitting the negative flipside of virginity, "there is no such thing as a never married woman who is not a virgin". If that were so then neither could we reason about the situation of "fallen women" (as ancient people clearly did) nor whether women "ever lived in public or manifest violation of chastity" be an exclusion criteria for individual consecration of women parishioners. A great deal of scholarship in recent decades explores the anthrolpology and logic of such cultures, which work differently from western cultures based on a legal frame of innocence or guilt. In the ancient world this shame flipside of virginity was obvious (and known to girls, though overseen by fathers). So was the role of females' virginity in fathers' and bridegrooms' honor, which ancient peoples saw as honoring Christ if they transferred the same way of thinking.
In ancient Greek, a woman who has never been married is normatively called a virgin, parthenos--and in Greek she was NOT called a woman, gyne, indeed that word also means wife. Circa 2nd and 3rd century some Christians discussing the Blessed Virgin Mary and "the Virgin Eve" who is described as "woman" from the time of her creation, argued that a virgin is also a woman. Nevertheless during the first phase of the Church, a woman who remained unmarried would not normally be referred to as a woman. She was a virgin. To call her something else would leave room for people to think something non-honorable about her, and at the time virginity was the very crux of honor for girls and their fathers. That remained the social reality for a long time.
In early Christian times people usually did not have a lot of freedom to remain unmarried--this was not only an issue for a woman whose future was controlled by her father (and might have a right of refusal over a specific bridegroom, but NOT a right of refusal over getting married), but under Roman law since the time of Augustus (the "Julian Laws on Adultery") male citizens were obliged to marry by a certain age or else be penalized. If I recall correctly, that was rescinded about a year after Christianity was legalized. There was significant public chafing against the "Julian Laws" and for Christians that was about the desire to remain in celibacy if they so chose.
My impression is that quite a lot of the spread of desire to remain chastely celibate and the glorification of virginity in that context was connected to and fostered by the pseudepigraphic "acts of Paul and Thecla". Due to her supposed friendship with St Paul, Thecla was THE important female saint in early Greek Christianity (and remained the key female saint for early monasticism). Whether there was a real Iconian hermit Thecla is uninvestigable, but her story is clearly highly legendary, as well as irregular (she baptizes herself! and her "martyrdom" isn't exactly; she survives attempted murder multiple times, escaping rapists the final time in her extreme old age by being absorbed into a rock face).
Virginity is significant for literal marriage. In heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Some people see the 144k male "virgins" in Revelation as literal virgins, but they seem to be the same referred to earlier which meant the whole people of God, figuratively as "virgins" they are those who had been faithful. Yes, there is a lot more of a case to be made for charity to be the key thing in heaven. About heaven, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and people speculate many different things. No one will have the sins of their youth define them or held against them in heaven and how can "behold, I make all things new, says the Lord" not include women?
Honestly, it is cruelly nonsensical to claim that celebrating a woman's virginity (imagined as a "thing" apparently, which she can consecrate; personally I always and only think of consecrating one's person, and one's person is inalienable, one cannot "lose" being a person) and attaching a lot of exalted meaning to her on that basis, doesn't affect how clergy and laity feel about and value whether celibate women are virgins. I have had many years of humiliating experiences (and sometimes panic attacks) with clergy and laity who have been taught to think about whether celibate women are virgins. I have wept and wept. I have no idea why people can't see that an exalted importance of NOT HAVING SINNED IN THE FIRST PLACE (virginity) is the opposite of a beacon of hope to repentant women. It can be devastating. It implies that the damage done by a man to a woman is permanent, spiritually profound, shamefully defines her within the Christian community regardless of repentance and living in permanent chastity. I have lasting scars of extreme anxiety and panic from experiences with clergy who saw literal virginity as central to female celibacy. I feel so much shame in my parish where one of my friends was made a "consecrated virgin" that I just double over at Mass a lot of the time.
Thank you for the canon law explanations. It would appear not much has changed. Total authority in many of these resides with the Bishop. Totalitarianism. If the Bishop is in any way flawed, so go the rules. It needs another revision.
Well said Eugene....This is one of the most astonishing issues here. The Holy See relies – for better or worse – on the local ordinaries! Huge risk, I find this plain absurd. Since when are local bishops, flawless and infallible!?
What if I told you the Pope isn't flawless and infallible (except in very specific instances)?
My point exactly- let alone how flawless and infallible the BISHOPS are, to rely solely on THEM? What if they themselves are the authors of evil or its cover up?
The most surprising of these changes is to Canon 699 §2, which does not have a corresponding change in the Eastern Code (perhaps we aren't as trusted), which will enable a Major Superior to be able to essentially eject any member of a community for a "lawful reason". This certainly reduces the transparency required since they only need "confirmation". What the last couple of decades has demonstrated is that the Church at all levels is in desperate need for much greater transparency and openness in her governance. This change has the feeling of the closing of the ranks.
Also, what is a confirmation in practice? A note to the Secretary saying that x was expelled for reason y? Or just x was expelled?
I have seen religious in formation being expelled for the flimiest of of excuses, and now this may be extended to those in a permanent state - such as solemn vows. And what will it mean for those who are incardinated into those communities?