CVs don't have to be Virgins?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, both Elms and McNamara were tenured professors of history at R-1 universities (as am I). They are more than reputable–they are world-class authorities.
 
Nice to have tenure at a high-ranking college and write what fits in with the mainstream ideology so one can become a “world-class authority.”
 
Perhaps they—we—have tenure because the research has actual merit. Do you have any basis for making such a snide remark?
 
Just out of curiosity—what credentials would you say qualify someone as a world-class authority?
 
Well, considering that their work has been repeatedly cited and respected by serious scholars around the world, their books have been published by major academic presses, and their articles have appeared in highly-ranked peer-reviewed scholarly journals… That, plus their tenure at R-1 universities are generally considered the criteria for world-class authorities. These would be the minimal requirements, which both Elms and McNamara exceeded substantially in their careers. I’ve read their work and benefited substantially from it. In the case of McNamara, she was also a friend and mentor.
 
Just because someone is considered in an areligious atmosphere to be a world class authority on a general topic doesn’t mean she is correct.

As far as I can tell, having not read the book, she writes as if the all-consuming thought of early Christians was not God or our Savior but the “war” between the sexes.
 
You have obviously not read the books. And serious scholarship is not apologetics.
 
Let me see if I can get them to see what she says before I go any further then.
 
True. What would be the point of calling the group virgins if they aren’t. I stick with the Christian definition, those who never had a consensual sexual encounter. So in the case of rape, the woman is still a virgin. Those who aren’t can be sisters or enter religious life, as there is no requirement for one to be a virgin.
 
Then why even have a separate vocation of consecrated virginity?
A woman who has had a sexual past can certainly become a great saint. She is more than welcome to consecrate herself to God as a sister or nun. Consecrated virginity is about virginity not just chastity. At least that’s how I understood it.
 
Another article which includes comments from both a CV-canonist and the prez of the USACV, respectively:

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Does the Church require that consecrated virgins actually be virgins?

A new Vatican instruction on the role of consecrated virginity has drawn criticism from an American group, which says that a key paragraph of the document could lead to confusion. At issue is whether entering the Church’s “order of virgins” requires that women actually be virgins.
www.catholicnewsagency.com www.catholicnewsagency.com
 
Last edited:
Very good article. I found this explanation especially helpful:
In Cooper’s view, the document’s “more generous description” of the prerequisite of virginity is “allowing for people in difficult situations to continue some serious discernment.” One disputed paragraph, she thinks, was meant to apply to “difficult cases” where a woman cannot answer whether she is a virgin according to a strict standard. She cited cases where women might have lost their virginity without willing it or against their will, or out of ignorance. Women might have “committed grave sins against chastity but not actually lost their virginity in their minds”
Click to expand...
As I read it, I immediately thought of women who came to the church older - in their twenties and thirties - with no spiritual background, after having been inundated for years in the sexual culture. Assuming it isn’t a situation that would cause public scandal, is it fair to disqualify those women for what they didn’t know?

I was also a little concerned about how hard-lined some people might be on this issue, based on this quote from the LifeSite article:
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
Click to expand...
Really? OK, masturbation is certainly a sin and grave moral offense, but it isn’t a loss of virginity and I don’t know of any church teaching that suggests it is.
 
Last edited:
It’s good to understand the Church’s teaching about sexuality.

Chastity is not the same thing as celibacy or virginity. Every human person is called to chastity, including married people. Chastity is the proper and well ordered integration of sexuality with the whole person.
II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY

2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.

The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The various forms of chastity

2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ,"135 the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.

2349 "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single."136 Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
Click to expand...
Every person has the vocation to chastity.
I think the Church makes the point that virginity, in the Church’s eyes, is not a materialist thing subject merely to physical attributes, but rather about chastity in that person’s state of life (the single life).
 
Last edited:
God can do anything. We call what God does, at times, miracles.

God created everything.
 
You have very little faith in God.

And for the record, I picked you up on your comment about God, not about what constitutes a consecrated virgin and what that Apostolate entails.
 
Last edited:
Of course they can be. Virtually all scholars are (see Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question in the American Historical Profession for treatment of that). But a good scholar is open about her or his perspective. And the evidence should be clearly provided to substantiate what one’s analysis is. And the research should be replicable.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top