What is Required for a Bishop to Profess and Consecrate a c 603 Hermit?

[[Dear Sister, could you clarify something for me in the passage you cited from the canonist? If a bishop professed and consecrated you under canon 603, what makes that different from a bishop blessing a priest-hermit or another hermit. I hear what Ms Ivers said about competent authorities and I figure it must have something to do with that, but when your own bishop consecrates you and only blesses another hermit what makes the difference? Is the bishop "holding back" some of his power to bless or something? Does it matter who the hermit is in any of this? I mean what if he has always criticized canonical status and really hates the idea and calls it a perversion of hermit life? Does that matter? By the way, thank you for posting that. I hear you say it and I believe what you write, but it makes a difference to hear someone who is a canon lawyer say it too.]]

Thanks for your questions. Two things allow a person to consecrate a diocesan hermit (or rather, mediate God's consecration of the diocesan hermit): 1) authority, and 2) intention. Both of these come together  in the Rite of profession and consecration of a diocesan hermit by her bishop (or someone he delegates to act on his behalf). The church gives the bishop the authority to create diocesan hermits (solitary consecrated hermits) under canon 603. He cannot do so apart from canon 603. Others do not have this authority as Ms Ivers makes very clear. In part this is due to the Catholic notion of subsidiarity. While diocesan hermits are hermits of the universal church, they are governed and responsible in terms of their vow of obedience primarily on the diocesan level, the level of the local Church. What I mean here is that I owe obedience to my own legitimate superiors in a way I will not to other bishops --- though I will certainly respect these as bishops of the church.

When a bishop blesses a hermit outside this specific context (canon 603, Rite of profession and consecration) his intention differs than it does within the context of implementing canon 603. He is intending to bless but not to initiate someone into the consecrated state. The blessing is significant; it indicates some degree of approval or hope for the hermit's vocation, but it does not cause consecration. Neither is the bishop holding back in some way. His intention is different and what he does as God works through him will differ in what it effects.

By the way, as your questions perceptively indicate, there is another piece that is also necessary for consecration and this one is on the hermit's part, namely, she must truly believe this is her vocation, she must desire and freely request this consecration, and be committed to taking on its rights and obligations. If someone walked in during a Mass of Profession and somehow took the hermit's place (I admit this is hard to imagine), and the bishop consecrated and professed her, her profession/consecration would be invalid. This is a reason the Church requires the individual to petition for admission to canon 603 consecration and spends time in discernment and formation. As best as possible, the Church can only profess and consecrate those who truly desire this, are very clear it is God's will for them, and have therefore readied themselves for it.

Despite what some bloggers are writing, the church doesn't drag the reluctant or barely-willing candidate to the altar for profession and consecration nor do spiritual directors compel directees to seek this in some misguided notion of obedience.  The church hierarchy doesn't call upon the whole Church, militant and triumphant, to witness a half-hearted acquiescence on someone's part! She does not force someone to accept canonical standing or, thus, to lay prostrate before God and the Church on earth and in heaven, or make vows which bind her in religion (and thus, under the pain of sin), merely because she's supposedly "phasing out hermits in the lay state". Neither does the Church profess criminals, bad hermits, etc, in order to bring them under a bishop's authority. Instead she keeps them away from unnecessary positions of honor and responsibility. One does not admit a person to a precious gift of God to the Church if the person has not indicated both worthiness and readiness for accepting, indeed, for giving their lives for the sake of this gift to church and world. This flawed and cynical notion of what profession is about is a perversion of the Church's entire theology of consecration.