On May 29th, Christina Hip-Flores defended her thesis in the School of Canon Law University of Navarra: 'Ordo Viduarum: Consecrated Widows in Canon Law' (Las viudas consagradas en el Canon Law). Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, was present.

In its work of research, directed by Professor José Antonio Fuentes, Hip-Flores studies the vocational phenomenon of widowed laywomen who consecrate themselves to God in their state and make the commitment to live celibate in the midst of the world. It is an institution considered by St. Paul, which was very important in the first centuries of the Church. In recent decades it has been making a comeback in dioceses in America and Europe, particularly in Italy.

Christina Hip-Flores analyzes the canonical provisions in force in this regard, both in the Code of the Eastern Churches and in the norms of different dioceses of the Latin Church. She considers the institution in the first centuries, in the Middle Ages -when it lost its importance- and today.

The new doctor works in U.S. ecclesiastical courts: Washington, Camden and other dioceses, and in that of the Archbishopric of Santiago de Cuba (Cuba). (Cuba).