Brides of Christ ‘need not be virgins’

THE Catholic Church has raised eyebrows by suggesting that women who devote their lives to Christ as consecrated virgins need not actually be virgins.

Vatican document ‘Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago’, which was published earlier this month, includes a clause stating that physical virginity is not an ‘essential prerequisite’ to consecration.

Women known as ‘Brides of Christ’ vow to lifelong virginity as part of a spiritual commitment to remain sacred for Jesus. Pope Paul VI revived the ancient Order of Virgins in 1970, offering a life of religious chastity to women. Women who commit to the life are not nuns and do not join a religious community, opting instead to support themselves financially, often through regular jobs.

In 2003, Dublin twin sisters Gemma and Triona King were consecrated by Cardinal Desmond Connell as two of just 12 consecrated virgins in Ireland.

The Vatican has now said that amid rising interest in taking vows to ‘marry’ Christ, the basic requirement of women ‘is not reducible to the symbol of physical integrity’. The Church document goes on: ‘To have kept her body in perfect continence or to have practised the virtue of chastity in an exemplary way, while of great importance, are not essential prerequisites.’

The US Association of Consecrated Virgins said it was ‘shocking’ to hear that physical virginity is no longer a necessity to a life of consecration.

‘The entire tradition of the Church has firmly upheld that a woman must have received the gift of virginity – both physical and spiritual – in order to receive the consecration of virgins,’ the group said in a statement.