The Vatican has stunned followers by suggesting that “Brides of Christ” do not have to be virgins to be “married to God.”
Published earlier this year, Catholic document Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago states that physical virginity is not an “essential prerequisite” to consecration.
The Vatican has suggested that Brides of Christ can have sex.
In the Catholic Church, to live a “consecrated” life means those who dedicate their lives to following Christ live a stable and disciplined form of Christian living which includes celibacy.
Nuns are not the only women considered Brides of Christ by the Vatican.
The practise also includes consecrated virgins meaning people who “give themselves fully to Christ” and commit to a life of celibacy.
There are roughly 5,000 of these devoted Catholics worldwide. Such women usually wear a ring as a sign of their pledge to remain pure for Jesus.
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The new law outlines female consecration, saying: “The call to give witness to the Church’s virginal, spousal and fruitful love for Christ is not reducible to the symbol of physical integrity.
“Thus to have kept her body in perfect continence or to have practised the virtue of chastity in an exemplary way, while of great importance with regard to the discernment, are not essential prerequisites in the absence of which admittance to consecration is not possible.”
The US Association of Consecrated Virgins has called the Vatican’s apparently new definition of consecration “shocking.”
In a statement, the group said: “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.”