Can Diocesan Hermits Become Diocesan Priests -- and Remain Hermits?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I have read on your blog about priests becoming Diocesan hermits. My question is could a Diocesan hermit become a priest? and remain a Diocesan hermit. ]]

The answer is no. One would need to make a choice as to whether one is called to be a diocesan priest or a diocesan hermit. It is one thing for an older priest to discern a call to eremitical life in the second half or late in his ministerial life and quite another for a hermit to decide he wants to become a priest. The first is actually allowed very very rarely. Remember that the training and education in seminary for diocesan priests is ministerial; moreover seminaries accept those who psychologically and personally feel clearly called to active  ministry. Dioceses foot the bill for the education of such seminarians and, in a church now marked by a serious shortage of clerics it makes no sense at all to educate a diocesan hermit as a priest when what they really want is to remain a hermit.

There is a second dimension to this negative answer, namely, a diocesan hermit is professed and commissioned to live stricter separation from the world, a life of assiduous prayer and penance, and the silence of solitude according to a Rule of life written by the hermit and approved with a Bishop's Decree of Approval. None of this could be maintained while studying full time in the seminary, doing appropriate pastoral work, etc. This means again, a choice needs to be made and if one chooses to enter the seminary (and is accepted for this), then one's vows would need to be dispensed. Another problem crops up here even if the hermit is not accepted or even found suitable for seminary: a diocese would have a very significant reason to doubt the validity of the person's hermit vocation if he took serious steps to discern and follow a call to diocesan priesthood. Dispensation from vows might well be a prudent step in such a case. If a person wishes to be a hermit and a priest he would do better to enter a semi eremitical congregation or community.

One of the questions bishops ask a would-be c 603 hermit is why this vocation and not another? At this point a person is being asked to be entirely honest regarding their own discernment and desires. Were a person to accept profession and consecration according to c 603 and then request admission to a seminary within a few short years, their honesty in accepting profession and consecration might be questioned and the validity of their vows as well. (This would be especially true if there was evidence they had questioned the matter in the external forum.) In any case, in the situation you describe, one would never admit a diocesan hermit to a diocesan seminary. The two vocations are different and, in this situation, even incompatible because either one will never work or serve as a diocesan priest (and may never be suited to it) or one will not live (for at least several years or more) as a hermit. In any case, there is no intrinsic reason for a hermit to become a priest, no essential need for this. Yes, we do need access to the Sacraments, but there is no indication hermits must (or even should) be made priests in order to have such access. Better their ecclesial vocations call them to be part of the Church community in a way which allows these needs to be met by others.