The Physical Integrity of the Virgin?

[Blue_Horizon]

It is a teaching of our Church that God miraculously preserved this bodily integrity in Our Lady after (and during) her childbirth (see Paul IV, “Cum Quorundam”, 7 August, 1555).

However we also know that the infallibility of Church Teaching only extends to matters of faith and morals and not to matters of science (unless there is such a linkage between the two sets that the denial of one would always mean the denial of the other).

So the question is: is this teaching actually infallibly defined? For how can the Church teach as infallibly true that which properly belongs to the domain of science (eg the earth revolves around the sun) and so outside of the umbrella of infallibility?

Obviously the Church also teaches us things on a prudential and disciplinary basis that we must publicly assent to even if not yet Dogmatically defined (I believe such is currently the official status wrt use of artificial methods of birth control, maintaining Clerical Celibacy amongst the Secular Clergy and approved Apparitions (where assent is not actually required but recommended)).
So I am wondering if this teaching (intact hymen after birth) is really a prudential/disciplinary one and could one day eventually become treated more as pious legend than dogma (like the legend that Mary was brought up as a dedicated Virgin in the Jerusalem Temple)?

There is no doubt of course that Mary knew no man at any time in her life (the Dogma of her Perpetual Virginity). That appears to be a historical fact handed down by tradition from the beginning even if definitive echoing of this fact in Scripture is debated.

However the matching physical integrity thing is a different kettle of fish altogether.
I also note that it is down-played in the current Catechism which indirects/obfuscates much clearer physical statements found in previous Catechisms of the past (especially as one gets closer to Trent).

The only direct reference in the current CCC seems to be:
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.

Its not exactly a ringing, whole-hearted endorsement of the early Church’s later inferences that Mary must have remained physically intact as well. (This is of course explained by the same ancient theologians as being possible, despite birth, due to the fact that baby Jesus was miraculously “born” without passing down the birth canal but somehow passing through the abdominal wall).

 

[JimG]

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.

It seems pretty clear to me. Mary remained a virgin even while giving birth to her Son.
The teaching has always been that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after the conception of Jesus.

We also believe that Jesus entered the locked upper room after his resurrection without opening the door. A similar situation.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

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.

It seems pretty clear to me. Mary remained a virgin even while giving birth to her Son.
The teaching has always been that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after the conception of Jesus.

We also believe that Jesus entered the locked upper room after his resurrection without opening the door. A similar situation.

Thanks Jim.
Unfortunately you haven’t really answered this one head on.
Is it an infallible dogmatic teaching and why?

It seems to be a teaching about biology which is not within umbrella of infallibility which is limited to faith and morals as I understand it.

I accept it is a teaching…but not all Church teachings are infallible.

“We also believe that Jesus entered the locked upper room after his resurrection without opening the door”. Well, I don’t think we would say that is infallibly taught unless the teaching of Jesus’s Bodily resurrection would be endangered by denying it.

What theological teaching would be denied if we accepted that biological proof of Mary’s Virginity could not be maintained.

And if it was retained during birth must we also accept that Jesus did not pass down the birth canal…as those same theologians of old asserted?

 

[JimG]

It’s true that the Church does not teach about biology–except to teach Mary’s perpetual virginity. It certainly does not go into the details of how this was accomplished, any more than it gives a physical explanation of the process by which Jesus walked through the walls of a locked room, or the molecular process that would have enabled Jesus to walk on water.

I don’t know if it’s stated as an “infallible” teaching. Most teachings of the Church are not formally declared “infallibly” unless there is a particular reason to do so. A teaching which has been accepted and taught down through the ages would not necessarily elicit a formal definition.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

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. It seems pretty clear to me. Mary remained a virgin even while giving birth to her Son.
The teaching has always been that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after the conception of Jesus.

We also believe that Jesus entered the locked upper room after his resurrection without opening the door. A similar situation.

Also He left the tomb without breaking the seal.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Also He left the tomb without breaking the seal.

Joe we all know the rather indirect images used to “support” how a manchild could be born without breaking a woman’s “integrity”.

But as observed the effort to do so starts weakening other theological dogmas we hold to.

I find it unavoidable that if we hold that Our Lady’s physical proof of virginity remained, as some influential male theologians of the yrs 200-500 concluded…then we must also accept their view that Jesus magically passed through the abdominal wall and was not born as all men are.

This miracle becomes increasinly problematic as it makes Jesus not fully “born”. It also means he was born in the same way that legend says Buddha was born.

So here’s a contradiction. Some of the ancients wanted to maintain the phsycial symbolism of Mary’s never knowing man … yet in doing so they severely weaken the physical symbolism proving that Jesus was born human and so was like us in all things but sin.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I don’t know if it’s stated as an “infallible” teaching. Most teachings of the Church are not formally declared “infallibly” unless there is a particular reason to do so. A teaching which has been accepted and taught down through the ages would not necessarily elicit a formal definition.

Yes this is a good summary of the situation Jim.
I am starting to realise that maybe it hasn’t really been accepted wholeheartedly down the ages… yes it was inferred and seriously held in Greek circles by male legal thinking up until the dark ages and then parroted from that time onward.
However I also observe increasing indirection in Church documents of the last 400 years since the cultural importance of legally provable female virginity has receded in European countries.