Understanding and Preventing Abuses of Canon 603 (Reprise with Tweaks)

(First published 1 year ago) [[Dear Sister Laurel, why is it that bishops and others misuse canon 603? Have you thought much about this? I wonder how it is we can prevent this from happening, whether by bishops or by those who are not hermits at all. Have you written about this already?]] 

Thanks for your questions! In light of several of my recent posts I think it is clear that they are important questions, and perhaps as neuralgic today as they were in the days of the first implementation of canon 603. So while, yes, I have written about this in the past, it is probably time to look again at the problems involved and the multi-part solution.

Your first question gets to the heart of the matter: "Why do bishops misuse or allow the misuse of canon 603?" is the way I would restate it. (There are many reasons individuals seek to be professed under canon 603 only one of which is valid --- namely, they have discovered they are called to human wholeness and holiness as a hermit and now wish to bring the gift of this call to the whole Church and world in the way only a public and ecclesial vocation can do.) That is, they seek to live this gift for the sake of others and others are allowed to know and take encouragement from this. However, it is up to the church (via bishop and his curia/staff) to discern both the genuine presence of this gift and the call to live it canonically. For this reason, I changed your question so that the weight and focus of it falls to the seeker's bishop. So, why do bishops misuse or allow the misuse of canon 603?

I think in the main the answer must be ignorance. It may be the bishop knows nothing really of the canon or its history. Sometimes they may not know anything substantive rather than merely superficial about eremitic life itself. Sometimes, even when they know something of eremitical life, they do not understand its charism, the unique way it is a gift for the individual hermit and for others, and they may have no sense at all that this is truly a significant vocation entrusted to the church by God. Added to ignorance there may be degrees of arrogance and carelessness as well then --- and here I mean carelessness in both the sense of "I couldn't care less" and in the related sense of sloppiness or negligence in discernment, implementation, supervision, etc. This is only logical because the carelessness we sometimes see with bishops who abuse or misuse canon 603 necessarily follows from a failure to understand either the nature or significance (especially in the sense of the charism) of the vocation itself. One cannot value appropriately what one does not understand, and one cannot treat with appropriate attentiveness what one does not value.

For me the most significant form of ignorance is a failure to understand the charism or gift quality of the vocation. I identify this as what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude" because it is unique to this vocation not only as context for the life, but also as its very goal and in this way, it becomes a gift to church and world (cf Silence of solitude as charism). Hermits recognize the call to wholeness and holiness is realized in the quies and shalom achieved by the individual in communion with God. This union of human and divine lived toward and realized in an eremitical context is what we rightly identify as the reality of true silence and the fullness of solitude. Where we are one with God our hearts are whole and at rest, just as where we are truly with God we are one; our hearts are not seeking or striving for meaning, nor do they cry out in anguish or groan in emptiness. (The anguish of compassion is another matter entirely!) In union with God we are truly ourselves and that self is a covenantal or dialogical event. This is what makes the solitude the hermit lives in and towards so very different from isolation. Too, it is from this eremitical silence that the song that is the hermit is spun out and into our world. And how desperately our world needs the witness of such lives!!

But how very few, relatively speaking, are those called to human wholeness and holiness in this specific way! While all are called to union with God and made to become God's very prayer in our world, very few are called to achieve this via eremitical life. Bishops need to understand this. They must learn to appreciate the gift the eremitical vocation is, not seeing the hermit as a kind of "prayer warrior", another, though perhaps more subtle, way of gauging the meaning of a life in terms of productivity and even busyness, but rather as a vivid illustration of the fundamental truth that we are each completed and find our lives to be supremely meaningful in our communion with God --- something which comes to us as grace as we learn to rest in God in the silence of solitude. I think few bishops come close to understanding the gift of the eremitical vocation in this way, and for that reason, they fail to see how much such vocations have to offer a society and culture where so very many are marked and marred by isolation and struggle with a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness in their lives. 

Without such a vision of the vocation's nature and charism it is a small step to bishops treating c 603 vocations as though they are unimportant, able to be used as stopgap solutions for problematical priests who, despite all their seminary discernment and training are unsuitable for parish ministry in the contemporary church, to allow c 603 to serve as a canonical slot into which they shoehorn cranky nutcases who might be appeased and quieted with consecration, or a relatively obscure sinecure into which a "failed religious" who wants to continue in active ministry might fit without making waves for anyone. Sometimes cases arise where an individual cannot be allowed to enter a religious congregation despite their strong sense this is what God is calling them to; bishops seeking a pastoral solution can be tempted to use c 603 as a stopgap to provide a means to public profession, despite the fact the person is not a hermit in any essential sense and shows no genuine inclination to eremitical life. Each of these represent ways c 603 has sometimes been used by bishops, and each is marked by ignorance and a correlative arrogance and carelessness. The most common result of such a lack of vision, however, is the profession of lone isolated individuals who may be pious and well-intentioned, but who are not, and will never be hermits in anything more than name only.

How do we prevent this from happening? 

I don't have an answer to the question of prevention. I have been asked in the past if canon 603 needed to be enlarged, or if there need to be more canons created, and once or twice whether the church needed to publish some other document on the vocation. At this point I would like to see some instructions** not only on the significance and charism of the vocation but also on who one admits to profession along with some suggested time frames for such a step. For instance, that one is already a (lay) hermit in some essential sense and approaches the diocese only after living as such for at least five years for a discernment process which will last anywhere from 2 to 5 years before admission to temporary vows, is one of these. (Someone coming from a background in religious life still needs a meaningful period of transition, discernment, and formation as a hermit though the number of years required for this are likely to differ.) 

I would also like to see some general instructions on what it means to write a Rule of Life and the amount of time (or the typical number of drafts and lived experience of the vocation) such a project requires and why. Especially I would like dioceses and candidates to understand that writing a liveable Rule requires experience living the life as a prerequisite, and also that writing several Rules over a period of years can assist the hermit, her director, and the chancery as well with both discernment and formation. So, to answer the question I once said no to, perhaps there is a need for a document of instructions on the nature and appropriate use of c 603 along with commentary on the central elements of the canon. Many bishops have taken the time to educate themselves on this specific vocation and implementation of the canon has worked well for them in the occasional vocations they have admitted to consecration.  However, abuses and misuses will probably still occur even in the presence of such an instruction; it will not stop misuses until and unless bishops and others working with candidates for c 603 profession take it (and other forms of education) seriously and use them to instruct inquirers and those admitted to serious processes of discernment. Only in such cases will such an instruction put an end to the ignorance that leads to abuse and misuse.

** Note: A reader reminded me of a resources document put out in 2002 by CICLSAL which was helpful and open to development. My thanks to him. There is certainly room for c 603 hermits/dioceses to share their wisdom re living and implementing canon 603 along with their ideas on this document and the ways it might be enhanced today. There is also a new document, new Guidelines on the c 603 vocation published in 2022 by CICLSAL (now DICLSAL). Folks should look for The Eremitic Form of Life in the Particular Church if they are interested.