The position of women within the Church is undergoing change.
This is also true within monasticism. The changes center around
various aspects of monastic life. One of these aspects is
equality. The Code itself recognizes this equality. How does
this legal recognition affect monasticism? Canon 606 states:
"Whatever is determined about institutes of consecrated life and
their members applies equally to either sex, unless the contrary
is apparent from the context of the wording or the nature of the
matter." It seems that men and women as monastics should be
treated the same since inherently there in nothing in the
wording or the nature of monasticism which would demand a
difference. Therefore let us examine some of the previous
inequalities and how they can be treated now in light of the
Code of Canon Law. The history of Benedictine monasticism in
North America reveals that the monks and nuns came to live, pray
and work in a similar fashion. Basically the style of
monasticism was not to be different for the monk