Can a Nun/Consecrated Virgin have a hysterectomy?

[goout]

Catholic teaching though has traditionally held that Mary was physically unaffected by the process of birth and remained a virgin in that sense also. Is this not a relevant consideration for someone who has made a vow of perpetual virginity? Or is it significant only for Mary? Just wondering how these are reconciled - it is obvious to me that someone who needs a medical procedure should get it.

This is not doctrine, it’s pious tradition held by some, but not binding for the assent of faith.
The perpetual virginity is dogma.

 

[Londoner]

I’m sometimes absolutely baffled by the questions people ask on here, and this is one such occasion. Why would a nun or consecrated virgin not be permitted to receive medical treatment deemed to be in her best interests by her gynaecologist? A nun or consecrated virgin is still a woman and still has a human body with all the potential difficulties that that brings.

 

[DeniseNY]

I’m sometimes absolutely baffled by the questions people ask on here, and this is one such occasion. Why would a nun or consecrated virgin not be permitted to receive medical treatment deemed to be in her best interests by her gynaecologist? A nun or consecrated virgin is still a woman and still has a human body with all the potential difficulties that that brings.

I wonder this as well

 

[FiveLinden]

This is not doctrine, it’s pious tradition held by some, but not binding for the assent of faith.
The perpetual virginity is dogma.

Yes it is. It is in the Catechism.

 

[goout]

goout:

This is not doctrine, it’s pious tradition held by some, but not binding for the assent of faith.
The perpetual virginity is dogma.

Yes it is. It is in the Catechism.

Her perpetual virginity is, the following is not.

that Mary was physically unaffected by the process of birth

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It’s my understanding that the early Church fathers believed Jesus was somehow born without going through the normal painful and potentially hymen-tearing (if the hymen wasn’t already somehow torn through non-sexual physical exercise) process of passing down the birth canal. Some theologians in recent years have still held this view. I suspect in those days there was rather an overemphasis on the preservation of an intact hymen as signifying virginity, when nowadays we realize that physically there are many non-sexual reasons why a hymen could rupture.

The Church today holds that Mary was perpetually a virgin regardless of whether her hymen was ruptured by some non-sexual cause or by giving birth, and regardless of whether Jesus was born in the normal human baby manner or through some mystical/ miraculous process of just passing through Mary’s body without harming it. As far as I know, the Church does not take an official position these days on how Jesus actually emerged from the womb.

The important part of the teaching is that Mary never had sex either before, during or after her pregnancy, at any time. The process of how Jesus emerged from her body is not important.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I didn’t write that—
You somehow quoted me quoting someone else

 

[jrgmercado]

Sometimes? It’s daily for me…sometimes I wonder if the question that is being asked is a joke and to be honest, sometimes I’m not sure.

 

[Londoner]

Strangely enough the questions that have me wondering whether the person posting them is for real are often about the role of women in the Church.

 

[FiveLinden]

It is in the catechism. It is Church teaching: 499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity **even in the act of giving birth ** to the Son of God made man. 154 In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” 155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos , the “Ever-virgin”.

 

[Lea101]

Well to be fair, a lot of questions about sex, marriage and babies naturally revolve around women’s biology.

I had lots of similar questions about it as well, since the differential treatment of women is counter-cultural and accepted. Same goes for the LGBT community.

 

[Lea101]

You’re assuming that physically giving birth affects one’s virginity (the act of delivering not sex), though.

 

[FiveLinden]

You’re assuming that physically giving birth affects one’s virginity (the act of delivering not sex), though

No, not me, the Catechism and the long traditions of the Catholic Church do this.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

FiveLinden, several of us including myself have explained to you above, including the “tradition”.

Once Again: The Church teaches that Mary is ever-virgin in that she never had sex.

The Church does not take a position on how the baby Jesus exited the womb; one can presume from the Catechism that regardless of the process of his physical birth, the Church still considers Mary a virgin before, during and after his birth. The Catechism section you mention is written quite broadly in this respect.

We all agree that Mary’s perpetual virginity is in the Catechism and that some theologians interpret it to mean Jesus was not born by a normal birth process but instead passed through Mary’s body “like light through a window” (the phrase I most often hear used) without any physical effect on her body, while others believe that Jesus was born in the normal manner, but still consider Mary a virgin because she did not have sex at any time in her life.

Do you still have some question about this? What part of it do you not understand? You are making the same argument over and over although several of us have responded to it and explained the Catechism section you keep citing.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

You’re assuming that physically giving birth affects one’s virginity (the act of delivering not sex), though

Yeah, I find this reasoning bizarre. Virginity refers to sex; not every instance of something moving through the vagina is sexual. If a woman gets a pelvic exam by her doctor, I wouldn’t say she’s thereby lost her virginity.

I always assumed Jesus was born by normal means, but it never even occurred to me that this would have rendered Mary not a virgin.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I always assumed Jesus was born by normal means, but it never even occurred to me that this would have rendered Mary not a virgin.

Me neither. Then again I never would have thought of a hysterectomy being viewed as something that affects consecrated virginity either. People get unusual ideas.

 

[goout]

It is in the catechism. It is Church teaching: 499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity **even in the act of giving birth ** to the Son of God made man. 154 In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” 155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos , the “Ever-virgin”.

Right, but you said this:

that Mary was physically unaffected by the process of birth

You’re overextending the CCC to mean something it is not intending. The CCC is referring to Mary’s perpetual virginity, not to being physically unaffected by the process of birth. Those are different things. Here is the passage in context if that helps:

Mary - "ever-virgin"

499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.154 In fact, Christ’s birth "did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it."155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos , the “Ever-virgin”.156

500 Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus.157 The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus”, are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary”.158 They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.159

**[501]Jesus is Mary’s only son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: "The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother’s love."160

 

[Lea101]

Exactly. They’re usually referring to the hymen, but it’s ridiculous since you can easily break it in various non sexual ways. Or be born without it.

This sort of ignorance led to the deaths of girls who couldn’t show a bloody white sheet on their wedding night to prove their virginity.

 

[1ke]

You’re overextending the CCC to mean something it is not intending. The CCC is referring to Mary’s perpetual virginity, not to being physically unaffected by the process of birth.

Actually, it’s not. It’s referring to her virginal integrity, which is physical integrity. The Catechism is quoting Lumen Gentium, 57.

 

[goout]

goout:

You’re overextending the CCC to mean something it is not intending. The CCC is referring to Mary’s perpetual virginity, not to being physically unaffected by the process of birth.

…virginal integrity, which is physical integrity.

Specific source please. LG 57 does not say that.
You are making the leap from LG 57:

This union is manifest also at the birth of Our Lord, who did not diminish His mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it,

to a kind of merely materialist physical virginity test. That’s your leap, not doctrine.