Misuse of Canon 603 and Oblature with Camaldolese

I received a question as well as followup questions to another post from a second person and I wanted to post them both together. I have written in the past about the misuse or abuse of Canon 603, especially as a loophole for non-canonical communities which do not have the right to canonically (publicly) profess members. These questions relate to this issue. (There is a third question which I will post separately because, while dealing with the misuse of Canon 603, it is a very different and publicized situation.)

[[Dear Sister, I am preparing for oblature with the Camaldolese, but at the same time I am living as a hermit and would like to use Canon 603 as the way I make my vows as an oblate. Can you describe how I would go about doing this?]]

Congratulations on choosing to become a Camaldolese Oblate. I hope you will find this step fulfilling and lifefgiving. However, your question indicates some confusion about the relationship between oblature and Canon 603 vows. These two things are completely separate and distinct. While I have heard of a group of Oblates mistakenly contending Canon 603 was the "usual" way some made vows as oblate hermits (see the second question below), and while I have heard too of some who confuse these for the actual oblature commitment, both of these things are completely untrue. Canon 603 is NOT the way to make a commitment as an oblate. Oblature is. Neither is it the "usual" way oblates establish themselves as hermits. Becoming a canon 603 or diocesan hermit is different than becoming an oblate (which, by the way, itself does not involve vows), even if one wishes to live as a lay hermit while an oblate.

The two different vocations may complement one another, but they must be discerned separately. Further, in my own experience and estimation, as important as Camaldolese oblature is, diocesan eremitical vows are more extensive and intensive a commitment, more fundamental or foundational than this. Oblature is ordinarily a private lay vocation and for that reason most Benedictine communities only allow lay persons to make oblature. If an oblate decides she is also called to become a hermit s/he still needs to determine whether s/he is called to lay eremitism or diocesan eremitism and the consecrated state. This means she and the diocese she is still part of (if she is interested in becoming a diocesan hermit who is publicly vowed and consecrated) need to submit to a mutual process of discernment to see if indeed she has such a vocation. On the other hand, a diocesan hermit might find Camaldolese oblature served her well for some time, but later, that Carmelite, or Cistercian, or Franciscan spirituality did so instead. While she is publicly vowed under Canon 603 and though she might need to rewrite parts of her Rule as a result, she is perfectly free to change private commitments to a particular spirituality, etc.

In my own life it is true that my eremitism, though diocesan or canonical, is also integrally Camaldolese. I would hope that anyone who makes oblature with the Camaldolese finds that their commitment is similarly integral to the whole of their lives whether they are religious, lay, clerical, or consecrated. Still, Camaldolese oblature itself is something added to a more fundamental vocation or state of life. Per se it does not require vows, nor, as noted, even involve them. Therefore, if you have determined you want to be a diocesan hermit, and you can say you appreciate the unique charism of the diocesan hermit (meaning, among other things, that you are not pursuing profession and consecration under Canon 603 as a way of becoming part of a "Camaldolese" community of some sort), then you need to go to your Bishop (or the Vicars and vocation personel under him) and speak to him (them) about this.

[[Dear Sister, I am part of a community of Camaldolese regular oblates with a two year novitiate. At the end of these two years some make vows under Canon 603. We are a dependent sub-priory with the Monks in Big Sur, CA. (questions followed regarding the length of time necessary for formation as a hermit and about approaching the Bishop but these are not directly pertinent here)]]

I am afraid you are mistaken and operating under several false understandings. Camaldolese Oblates per se may be clerical, lay, religious or consecrated (virgins and hermits), but there is no official community of oblates associated with the Camaldolese Monks of the US that use Canon 603 as a "usual" means to eremitical profession, nor is this the proper use of Canon 603 (more about this below). Neither is there a community of oblates known as a dependent sub-priory of the Hermitage in Big Sur. To be certain of what I already believed to be the case on the basis of my own superficial knowledge of the Camaldolese constitutions, I have spoken with professed Camaldolese who in turn have spoken with the former Prior in Big Sur. Again, there is NO dependent priory (or "sub-priory"), and no community of "regular oblates" associated with Big Sur. There is a reality in the Camaldolese Constitutions called Claustral or regular oblates, but these are persons who live ON THE HERMITAGE grounds, are bound to live by the rule (regula), and are not vowed, at least not ordinarily and not as oblates. (They may be vowed AND become claustral oblates, but being professed is extrinsic or accidental to their oblature.)

In any case, again, what you describe is also, according to the canonists I have spoken with, a misuse of canon 603 which is designed for and governs solitary eremitical vocations. Canon 603 is not appropriate for those who are part of a non-canonical community when it is meant to serve as a stopgap means of getting members of such groups canonical standing. It is important to remember that the vocation of the canon 603 hermit is different than that of a religious hermit --- not in its essentials re eremitical life --- but in the requirements that such hermits are solitary (not religious who are part of a community) and therefore, that they be self-supporting, responsible for their own housing, insurance, medical care, transportation, retreat, library and educational needs, ongoing formation, spiritual direction, etc.

One must discern a vocation to this solitary eremitical form of life, a form of life where the Bishop is one's legitimate superior, where one becomes part of the consecrated state of life, where one is bound by many of the canons related to religious life as well as by canon 603, and where one's affiliation with the Camaldolese is supportive and entirely secondary to one's public profession and identity. I should also note that there is no specified novitiate period with canon 603 --- especially not one of two years because such a process of initial formation is both entirely individual and a function of time in solitude. Most Bishops will NOT profess a diocesan hermit even under temporary vows unless they have lived the life for at least five years. I think this minimum is entirely reasonable and am comfortable with individuals requiring up to 10 years or more to be admitted to perpetual profession under canon 603.

In some forms of affiliation secular or third order members (Carmelite, Franciscan, etc) make vows. In such cases one MAY NOT ALSO make canon 603 profession. One of the commitments must go and the individual must discern which one. The Camaldolese, unlike most Benedictine groups, allow oblature by religious, clergy, and consecrated persons as well as laity, but oblates DO NOT make vows as oblates. This is the reason, for instance, I can be both a diocesan hermit and an oblate. Even Camaldolese claustral oblates do not make vows, though they assuredly commit to live by the rules of the community within enclosure. The bottom line is that what you are describing is neither official Camaldolese praxis nor appropriate to Canon 603. If a diocesan hermit affiliates with a Camaldolese monastery, this does not give other oblates living as lay hermits the right as oblates to go to their Bishop and expect to be admitted to profession under canon 603 --- although they may do so as an individual discerning this specific vocation and eventually, petition on their own.

I have seen this happen once in the past in another country (geographically far from the Camaldolese Hermitage in Big Sur) and the Bishop, who apparently was led to believe he was presiding at the profession of a "Camaldolese Oblate hermit" later repudiated or reduced the vows to some degree by saying they were private and not canon 603. Though this was painful to the hermit professed, it was, I think, the best solution the Bishop could come up with since there had been a public ceremony with publicity, media coverage, etc, and therefore a lot of confusion and misrepresentation all around. (The profession was originally treated as public and used the canonical rite for such vows, but the hermit never specifically petitioned to be professed under canon 603; both she and the Bishop thought he was professing someone as part of a Camaldolese Oblate community. Thus, only later did the Bishop inform the hermit that her vows were considered private. As I understand the situation, he could, of course, have concluded the entire affair was invalid and even involved fraud had he wanted to be hard nosed about it.)

One of the most significant sources of this mess besides geographical distance from the Camaldolese Monks of the US, and the failure to check things out with them directly, was the claim that those (monks and nuns) who are publicly professed as Camaldolese were also called Oblates. Hence when someone said "I am a Camaldolese Oblate" one could easily get the impression that they were publicly professed or preparing for public profession as a monk or nun. The problem here of course is that actual Camaldolese monks and nuns do not call or refer to themselves as Oblates. Another was the assertion that the group to which the hermit belonged was a dependent house of the Camaldolese --- despite the fact that there was no such house (the oblates lived separately from one another) and that the professed Camaldolese had none. (The OSB Camaldolese constitutions allow for the establishment of dependent houses, but they require a certain number of monks or nuns in solemn vows as part of the foundation to do this. It is not something done with oblates.) In the end, however, this Bishop helped ensure that Canon 603 would be rightly used in the future and that if members of the group of oblates wished to make vows those would be private unless they truly discerned vocations as diocesan hermits and were admitted to public profession under canon 603.