Once Again: "Perennial" Questions and Problematical Statements

[[Dear Sister, the Vicar for Religious in my chancery explained to me that the following passage was mistaken in some important ways. She explained why and also said I might want to read what you had written about this in the past. I just can't find what you said about this. Can you help me?]]

[[This is simple enough to comprehend. The three evangelical counsels are chastity in celibacy, obedience, and poverty. These professions may be made publicly but not always: they can be private professions. If public, there is the option to go the way of Canon 603 which more formalizes the profession. This option can be read more in depth in a guide that was compiled by a religious sister about ten years ago and which is being revised. In that guide are collected writings and suggestions for the hermit life, including some revised statutes for the eremitic life by the Bishops' of France, the citation of CL603, and other sundry aides such as possible rites and sample rules of life. 

This guidebook has been used as that--a guide--in some Dioceses. Or, if public profession is God's will and the hermit's accepted format for profession of promises or vows, Canon 603 does not need to be utilized or incorporated. If not, the hermit is publicly avowed and consecrated, but not bound by that Canon. Regardless of Canon 603 or not, a public profession is that: public. People know. If private profession is God's will and the hermit's accepted format for profession, the process is not known to others in general and sometimes not in specific. A priest or Bishop may receive the profession (vows and promises). Perhaps it is between the cleric and the hermit, or perhaps a witness or a few are present. A ceremony may be selected from the above mentioned guidebook of compilations, or the hermit may research and develop a ceremony for this private profession. A token may be used, a type of habit may be selected, a form may be signed and dated. But these would all fall in the realm of that which would be hidden from the eyes of others. It is private.]]

Ah, unfortunately, there are a number of different posts which speak to the issues in this passage; I have written about them all over the past decade, sometimes many times. The labels you should look under are included below in emboldened and italicized type. The guidebook being spoken of is one written by Sister Marlene Wiesenbeck (for the Diocese of La Crosse) so you might check the labels of this blog to see if I have referred to her in any posts. I don't remember doing so except that I am pretty sure I once mentioned my own diocese used parts of her guidebook in 2007 for my own profession. Sister Wiesenbeck's work in this had significant value when it was written and, while updating is necessary, still does today for those dioceses implementing canon 603, and for those seeking to be professed under canon 603. I should say that it is emphatically not the source of any of the problematical statements you have cited in the passage commented on by your Vicar for Religious.

One fundamental problem, as I have written about a number of times here, is with the mistaken use of the term public and the purported optional nature of canon 603. "Public" in regard to profession does not refer to the number of persons who do or don't attend; it refers to the fact that profession initiates one into a new (and public or canonical) state of life with additional public (canonical) rights and obligations. Strictly speaking private vows are not profession because they don't initiate one into a new (in this case, consecrated) state of life. Similarly, then, private means simply "A commitment which does not grant or embrace canonical (public) rights or obligations beyond those granted and embraced at baptism."

Such commitments are still quite serious personally but they do not allow much less call for others in the Church or elsewhere to have specific expectations of the person making the commitment as public commitments do. (A public vow of poverty, for instance, which is part of the larger act of profession, sets up public expectations on how the person lives in terms of consumerism, simplicity, dependence on God, etc. People have a legitimate right to expect someone who is publicly professed to honor their vow. This is not the case with a private commitment/vow.) A second fundamental problem is with the notion that one may become a solitary hermit who is professed (profession is always a public act) and consecrated but without using canon 603. Canon 603 doesn't just formalize a profession, nor is it optional for solitary consecrated eremitical life; canon 603 is the only way one can  make profession or be consecrated as a solitary hermit. There is simply no other option if one is talking about public commitments and/or consecration in the Roman Catholic Church.

While there is room for creative expression and personal choice in these matters, especially in terms of readings and music, there are also limitations; certain elements will be required by your bishop and canonists as part of the ceremony if you are admitted to profession. Please check with them on this. My own diocese used the Rite of Religious Profession which is normative for such things and allowed usage of a couple of the vow formulas from Wiesenbeck's Guidebook (one can write one's own; I chose not to use any of these because I already had a vow formula which I had lived for some time and loved; I made some minimal changes in it to reflect this new (eremitical) context).

Also, in reading your Rule, a canonist will very specifically read your vow formula to be sure you are actually making vows in the way which will be valid,  I remember our Vicar for Religious who was also the canonist that did this for me for perpetual profession explaining why I could not say "I will. . ." in addition to "I vow" at one point in my vow formula. It seemed nit picky, especially since it followed and modified but was entirely dependent on the phrase, "I vow", but once I understood the explanation it made a lot of sense. (To say "I vow"  is a performative act which makes the commitment immediately real and binding in the very saying of the words; to say, "I will" is temporally indefinite, even conditional, and raises the question of "When (and under what conditions) will you. . . Do you mean next week, or maybe when you feel like it?")  The passage you are citing is pretty dated, so I am not sure when I wrote about it as such, but please look for posts on public profession vs private vows, consecration vs dedication, canon 603, reception vs witness (a question you should have a sense of), and perhaps Guidebook on Eremitical Life and/or Sister Marlene Wiesenbeck. Labels are found in the right hand upper column of this blog.

If these aren't as helpful as you need, please get back to me with another question or set of questions and I will try to give you a more comprehensive response. Especially, I would suggest you compare your notes of what your Vicar for Religious told you and what I have written. I appreciate her comments seem to indicate general agreement, but if there are gaps, or if we seem to be saying something different from one another here or there, please do get back to me on these specific points. If they seem substantive and there is real disagreement, I would like to talk about them --- perhaps with your Vicar --- to be sure I understand her reasoning on them. That would be of real help to me and to this blog.