On the Adequacy and Supposed Inadequacy of c 603

[[Hi Sister, I watched a video about you and c 603 that said the canon was ineffective in correcting problems with hermits, and so, what was the use of the canon anyway? The person creating the video noted that if a hermit wanted to choose their own spiritual director, they could do that, and the canon, or maybe the bishop, had nothing to say in the matter. I thought they were saying again, what was the use of a canon law that did nothing anyway? As I say, the whole video (Leaving an Ugly Situation) seemed to be about you and canon 603 and said that your Diocese didn't even know who you were when they were called by this person. It raised a ton of questions for me, but I wanted to ask about the inadequacy of Canon 603. Do you think that's the case? I don't think I have ever heard you opine that the canon is insufficient or inadequate; have you? How would you respond to someone putting up a post like the one mentioned?]]

Thanks for the questions. I will answer some of them because they are relatively new and I think some folks will be really interested. Unfortunately, when the author complains that c 603 does not deal with hermits whom a diocese has complaints about or who live their vocation badly, and for that reason, "what's the use of such a canon?" it's a lot like saying "that hammer is ineffective at drilling holes, so what is the use of having such a tool?" Similarly, saying that "c 603 does not specify who can be the hermit's spiritual director, etc." is a lot like complaining that a dictionary doesn't dictate (or legislate) how a writer must compose an essay. The point in either case is that c 603 does what it is meant to do. It was not created to discipline hermits or to chart the exact steps a hermit must take in her hugely individual relationship with God. 

Other canons and canonical processes are dedicated to doing the kind of thing your author decries c 603 for not doing. If someone is truly not living their vocation, there are canonical mechanisms for dealing with such a situation. If one's spiritual director is not sufficiently fitted to work with this vocation or this candidate/hermit, the diocese can request the candidate (or hermit) find someone more suitable and provide specific referrals if that would be helpful. Still, c 603 is a wonderful combination of the "sine qua non" and the personally defined and necessary. It provides for a vocation of hardly-to-be-imagined depth served both by significant constraints and an awesome flexibility and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit. This means that c 603 reflects both the universally valid and the truly individual and deeply personal in a way that tries to assure the hermit/candidate neither falls into the worldly distortion of individualism nor slides into the anti-Christian pettiness and blind rigidity of legalism. 

Likewise, the canon expects the creative collaboration between Church and candidate/hermit as both together explore the face of solitary eremitical life in today's world. It seems to me that c 603 invites a startlingly vivid embodiment of the process of synodality where both hermit and Church together walk their own vocations in a mutual and mutually enhancing freedom most would regard as authentic. One partner's freedom enhances the freedom of the other and both challenge and inspire the other to truly be who God calls them to be. The Church learns from the hermit's lived experience while the hermit's own vision of and response to her vocation is shaped by the ecclesial sensibilities revealed and entrusted to her by that same Church. Written over a period of several years during this journey with the local Church, the Rule of Life required by c 603 brings together what cannot be relinquished by either the Church or the solitary truly hermit committed to living the vocation given by God to the Church and entrusted to the hermit herself. In this way, Canon 603 does a great deal of work and allows for other canons in the Church's code to play their own roles when and as genuinely necessary. 

No, I don't believe c 603 is deficient. I do think it is inadequately understood, and that is where some experienced c 603 hermits will be a great help to the Church in the future. Most especially, the Church requires the assistance of those who understand the canon not merely as a norm (remember canon means "norm") or piece of ecclesiastical legislation they have learned about from the outside in, but instead as an astounding topographical map of an existential journey they have made or are making and therefore understand from the inside out. Once the canon is appreciated in this way, criticisms of its putative inadequacy and negative evaluations of its reasons for existing fall away.

As a final note, I have responded before to the accusations made against me in the video you referred to. If you wish to read that, you will find the post here: Misconceptions and whole cloth untruths. Several posts written during the Summer of 2024 are linked to the topics discussed in that post.