Questions about Consecrated Virginity

[Kateri89]

If I understand correctly, a consecrated virgin is obedient to her Bishop.  Does this mean she must live in her diocese forever?  Would that preclude any sort of overseas missionary apostolate?

[katherineH]

It is my understanding that yes, she is bound to the bishop who received her vow.  This also means that if the bishop gets moved to a different diocese that she would go with him. I imagine that any kind of long travel or ministry work would have to be done with the blessing of the Bishop. Again, based on my understanding of CV, a woman's primary responsibility is to serve her local diocese and Bishop so that would trump any other kind of other apostolate not directly related.

[Sponsa-Christi]

Just some fair warning---this actually can be a bit of a hot-button issue among CVs.

Canon law actually doesn't give us many specifics regarding the exact nature of a consecrated virgin's relationship to her bishop and diocese. But my thought is that because a CV does have a special bond to her home diocese, under ordinary circumstances she would spend her life there. 

However, I don't think this means a CV can never move---although I do think that a consecrated virgin shouldn't relocate permanently without a serious reason. I'd imagine such serious reasons could include grave personal needs (like needing to move to a milder climate because of poor health), or an instance of a clear need in the Church that a CV could only fulfill by moving (e.g., a theologian CV moves in order to teach at a seminary). So I think that if a CV prayerfully discerned that she called to foreign mission work, and he bishop agreed with her discernment, then it would certainly be possible for her to go overseas. And of course, going on mission temporarily is different from leaving your home diocese permanently, so a CV missionary wouldn't necessarily have to "transfer dioceses" or "change bishops."

I would tend to think of a CV's relationship to her diocese as being somewhat parallel to (though obviously, not exactly the same thing as) incardination for a diocesan priest. Diocesan priests generally remain in the diocese for which they were ordained, but some do wind up transferring dioceses---or being temporarily "on loan" to a different diocese---for carefully discerned reasons. 

Incidentally, a CV's connection to her bishop is really a connection to the bishop's office rather than his person. So the idea isn't that a CV follows a bishop if he happens to be given charge of a different dioceses. E.g., if Jane is consecrated by Bishop Bob Smith of the Diocese of Centerville, "her bishop" is whoever is the current bishop of Centerville is, and not necessarily Bob Smith in particular.