Are Consecrated Virgins More Lay Than Religious Women?

The history of Religious Life during the recent centuries, shows that some of the founders intended their communities to have greater interaction with the world through apostolic activities.  Some of them did not see the vocational commitments in the form of 3 evangelical counsels.  However, pressure from authorities in the Church led most of them to embrace the regimented lifestyle of convents and separation from the world.  They were intended to live like today's Secular Institutes, but landed in the category of Apostolic Religious life. As a result of this, today we find a spectrum of possibilities in the degree of separation from the world and insertion in the world, among the thousands of Apostolic Religious Congregations and Institutes.

Analogically, The Order of Virgins too has a spectrum of possibilities in the degree of the separation of a consecrated virgin from the world and her insertion in the world. She is in the world but not of the world.  Every vocation of celibate chastity called to live in union with God, by its very nature demands an interior separation from the world.  This is compatible with varying degrees of external involvement with the world.

HENCE MY OBSERVATION IS THAT BOTH APOSTOLIC RELIGIOUS AND MEMBERS OF THE ORDER OF VIRGINS ARE LIVING IN THE WORLD IN THE RELATIVE SENSE OF NOT LIVING IN CLOISTERED MONASTERIES.

THERE IS NO THEOLOGICAL GROUND TO CONSIDER CONSECRATED VIRGINS AS 'MORE LAY' THAN RELIGIOUS WOMEN!

Also read Charism of Consecrated virginity NOT Sacred Secularity