Canon 603, Misuses and Abuses: Part 2, Recognizing and Embracing the Charism of Solitary Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister, your last post raised additional questions for me so I am writing to see if you can answer them. You said that lauras are very different than communities of hermits. Can you say what these are? You also described the flexibility of the eremitical life and described conditions that allowed for such flexibility. It seems to me though that these same conditions can lead to abuses and misuses of C 603. Has this happened? Is it common? Is Canon 603 itself enough to prevent such abuses or does the Church need something from Rome like the other poster mentioned --- a document like Vita Consecrata?]]

So, I hope my last post answered your question about some of the major differences between a c 603 laura and a community. Let me give the rest of your question a shot in this post. I want to start though by discussing the cause of the abuses we see (because yes, we see them and yes, this has an effect on further vocations).

Neglect of Charism: The Source of Abuses and Misuse of Canon 603

My own sense is that misuses and abuses in the application and use of canon 603 inevitably stem from one single source, namely, an ignorance of or failure to appreciate the actual charism of diocesan eremitical life. Because people (including Bishops and chanceries) don't actually understand or regard the vocation's nature as gift or the quality of that gift in concrete terms, the essential elements of the canon are treated as negotiable or susceptible to endless compromise and dispensation. I am identifying the charism of diocesan eremitism as a life of "the silence of solitude" lived by a solitary hermit, and lived, as the canon specifies, for the praise of God and the salvation of the world. The shorthand form of the charism is "the silence of solitude". The salvation it refers to and occasions takes a number of forms, no doubt, but one of the most important and necessary in today's world is the witness to and modeling of the transformation of isolation into genuine solitude possible with the grace of God for those multitudes who are left alone and estranged in a world marked by excessive mobility and in which the meaning of a life is gauged by the criteria of productivity, consumerism, wealth, and the like.

Essential Elements of the Canon Establish the Gift Quality of the Vocation

Once this is understood the essential elements of the canon (a vowed life of stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, according to a Rule of life the hermit writes herself and lives under the supervision of her Bishop) cannot be set aside or redefined to mean anything at all. Because the vocation is a gift especially to those who cannot simply opt out of the circumstances that isolate and limit them (situations like chronic illness, bereavement, old age, imprisonment, etc)--- not even for brief periods --- hermits must be able to live full-time solitude and in doing so witness to the redemption of isolation possible when one stands on the margins of society empowered by the grace of God. Understanding and respecting the gift eremitical life is to these persons would put an end to the possibility of some of the misuses and abuses of the canon we do see today: part-time hermits (hermits who work full-time outside the hermitage in very social roles and allot Saturdays (et al) to contemplative prayer), "hermits" who are professed merely because there is no other canon in the Revised Roman Code to profess an individual even though they are truly called to be ministerial or apostolic religious, "hermits" who are merely failures at life or who are so eccentric or misanthropic that their isolation is mistaken for authentic solitude and canon 603 is seen as a way of validating their lives, married hermits, and persons who simply live alone and are relatively pious.

All of these instances of misuse and misunderstanding occur when the elements of canon 603 are treated as optional or negotiable or are redefined to mean something less or other than they actually say. So, for instance, the silence of solitude is redefined as "silence and solitude" and treated merely as external things to be built into one's day rather than as the very goal of the life --- a way of describing the silence (and the song!) that results when one lives in union with God as well as the external environment that helps lead to this. Assiduous prayer and penance too are treated as quantifiable activities rather than as the quality of an obedient and articulate life steeped in and open to the active Word and presence of God. Stricter separation from the world is treated as the simple act of closing the hermitage door on reality rather than as a commitment to becoming holy and authentically human precisely as God's dialogue and covenant partner within a solitary context. "For the salvation of the world" is then an obscure phrase tacked onto what seems to be a thoughtless, selfish, and individualistic pursuit rather than being taken as a defining element of the vocation which marks it as one of generosity and love at its very heart. No specific person or group of people is seen as benefiting from the integral commitment to a life of genuine solitude when this phrase is cut off from concrete circumstances.

A Life of Compromise and Mediocrity

When all this happens it is a short step to a life of compromise and mediocrity. Once people fail to understand "the silence of solitude" as a description of the union with God which transforms all human weakness and poverty or redeems ANY form of isolation or estrangement without regard to productivity, wealth, buying power, status, and the like, the essential elements outlined in the canon become more or less dispensable. When it ceases to be not only the environment necessary for the diocesan hermit but the goal of her life as well the same thing happens. And as a result canon 603 can become a stopgap way to profess anyone who merely lives alone and fits under no other canon rather than the canon which is reserved for professing those who are truly already hermits in some essential way, whose lives witness to the dynamic embodied in the term "the silence of solitude," and who require profession under this canon in order to live out this embodiment as fully and integrally as possible.

As your questions recognize, flexibility can lead to abuse, but my own sense is that what is important in making sure there is genuine flexibility and not simply a casual disregard for the elements of the canon is a sense of the gift quality of the vocation. When the hermit understands and esteems the gift her life is to Church and world in very concrete terms she can be flexible out of love, not merely casual out of disregard or ignorance. At the same time she will not be rigid in her living out of this vocation to Christian freedom, because rigidity is a function of ignorance and lack of understanding (not to mention a lack of love) as much as is license.

On the Incidence and Significance of Misuse and Abuse of Canon 603

Are there many misuses or abuses of canon 603? No, not in absolute terms. But given the relative rarity of the vocation every one of these is akin to 100's of instances of abuse in other more common forms of consecrated life. Each one establishes a precedent, and in a vocation which is little-understood, even by Bishops, and where Bishops are, at least in part, dependent upon living paradigms of the nature and significance of the vocation for truly understanding the vocation, each precedent can have enormous influence, whether for good or for ill. Often the result of such instances is not the profession of others in the same way, but the refusal of Bishops to profess anyone because the vocation is made to look badly conceived and incredible by such misuses.

Do we need the Church to produce a document for Canon 603 like Vita Consecrata? I don't know. We certainly need Bishops and chancery personnel (not to mention those who wish to be professed under this canon!) to understand the true meaning of the central elements of the canon and WHY they are non-negotiable. Non-negotiable does not mean inflexible in expression or embodiment, but it does mean that these elements contribute to the gift quality of the vocation and that that will be lost if they are treated as expendable or infinitely elastic. Commentaries are clear that canon 603 is not a call to a life of merely external silence and solitude, nor to simply living alone, doing one's own thing, and being fairly pious in the process. What must happen is for Bishops and their chancery personnel to educate themselves on canon 603; similarly, as mentioned in my previous post, they must appreciate that what is canonically possible because it is not prohibited is not the same as what is prudent for the vocation itself. If a document from Rome can do these things, then perhaps it could be helpful.