CVs don't have to be Virgins?

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Cloisters

Cloisters

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Someone’s dicastery just flipped out. Whatever happened to secular Institutes for non-virgins as per Provida Mater?

www.lifesitenews.com

Vatican: Consecrated virgins no longer have to be virgins - LifeSite

In a confusing new Instruction for the Order of Virgins, 'perfect continence' and the 'virtue of chastity' are not required, which means the Blessed Virgin Mary would not have been eligible.
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Mrs Cloisters OP
Lay Dominican
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Perhaps it is meant to not exclude women who lost their virginity in some way they did not consent to (rape, sexual abuse including when they were a child) or in some way not involving sex (you can lose your hymen in all kinds of non-sexual ways).
 
How is a woman verified to be a virgin anyway? Is any of this even enforceable to begin with?
 
Discerners can be brutally honest about their pasts. I know of one woman who was raped, but stayed chaste, and she was encouraged to look into becoming a CV. She didn’t have an attraction to the vocation, so she didn’t.

I know of two Dominican convents who inquire about a woman’s “status.” If not a virgin, no admission.
 
That is not loss of virginity. Being a victim of a violent act has nothing to do with virginity! Assault is an act of violence, not a sexual act–and certainly not one with the complicity of the victim!
 
This is highly unusual in 2018. It was also highly unusual in the past. At least 4 founders in the late 19th-century US were divorced (many more were widows), and at least 2 were unwed mothers.
 
Cloisters said:
I know of two Dominican convents who inquire about a woman’s “status.” If not a virgin, no admission.
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They could lose an awful lot of vocations like that. I spent a year with the Dominicans. Virginity is not an essential part of their charism at all. I don’t get why they would adopt this rule.
 
Please read some serious work on rape and sexual assault. Anyone who defines rape as “destroying” a woman’s virginity, or who sees it as “sexual activity” doesn’t understand what rape is. I realize this is not a place for debate, but you are simply not right. There is a lot you can read about what rape is and is not. I hope you will do so.
 
I thought consecrated virgins and joining a religious order such as the Dominicans were two different things.
 
Religious orders rarely consecrate their virgins anymore. I think Stanbrook Abbey Benedictines are the only holdouts on this.

The article is talking about the Vatican muddying the waters in regards to the criteria for a consecrated virgin. The criteria has always required that the woman had never engaged in consensual sexual relations. This document says that a woman practicing “Second Virginity” would be accepted.

The two Dominican convents are in the US, and yes, they lose vocations because of the virginity requirement. Virginity is very highly esteemed in the Dominican Order.

One emerging community that never got past the Foundress insisted on virginity, no abortions, and no previous marriages. I told her that virgins were going to be rare these days. She called me back, very flustered, and protested what I had told her. They also refused to get a web presence. As I said, they didn’t attract vocations.
 
To clarify, those practicing Second Virginity, whose liaisons were not public knowledge, are supposedly eligible for the Order of Virgins.
 
It could effect their life as a Dominican.

Dioceses want to know if a young man is a virgin in the application for seminary…
 
AdamP88 said:
virginity is a physical attribute in women that is “destroyed” when sexual activity occurs for the first time.
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That’s a very outdated definition, back when people didn’t even know there are women who are born without a hymen, or that it can break during non sexual activities. It hurts to think about all the women who were injured or killed in the past because they failed to produce a bloody sheet on the night of their wedding.
nunsuch said:
Assault is an act of violence, not a sexual act–and certainly not one with the complicity of the victim!
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Rape is a violent and sexual act though. The most common definition of a virgin is someone who did not have sex yet. Rape is forced sex. Some people are a little PC and choose to define it as someone who did not willingly have sex. I’m assuming the Church did that too because it’s not ‘fair’ to exclude women from a Vocation because of a choice they didn’t make.
 
Why is that though? I assume that since the Church believes in us becoming ‘new’ after confession, social constructs like virginity should not matter after they confessed.
 
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