Category talk:Reputed virgins

Ecclesiastics

@Clarityfiend: The category description indicates that religious should be excluded. Is your intention that clerics in churches that require clerical celibacy – most notably the Latin Church (which comprises the vast majority of the Roman Catholic Church) and, for bishops, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches – should be excluded too? Graham (talk) 04:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

@Graham11: I'm not sure where you're going with this. Being celibate after becoming a priest doesn't mean one was chaste beforehand. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I was trying to exclude people like Mother Teresa, but now I'm wondering if that's a good thing. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend: I realize that clergymen who are required to be celibate often weren't celibate before they joined the clergy (and that a not-insignificant number don't remain celibate despite their obligations). But I noticed that the category excluded "member[s] of ... religious order[s] that required chastity". Under contemporary uses of the term religious order (which has, at least colloquially, become largely synonymous with the broader term religious institute), this would exclude monks, nuns, friars, canons regular, clerics regular, and other religious sisters (except for those in a small number of Protestant groups that use the term religious order without mandating celibacy).

I'm not clear whether the intention was to also exclude secular clergymen (i.e. clergymen who are not members of a religious institute, who comprise the majority of Christian priests) who are required to remain celibate too. If the category is to exclude certain ecclesiastics who are required to remain celibate, I think it should exclude all of them, religious or secular. But I also don't know if the exclusion of these ecclesiastics is desirable in the first place. Graham (talk) 00:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

@Graham11: I'm going to remove that restriction. Hopefully, it doesn't make a lot of difference anyway. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:38, 18 January 2023 (UTC)