On the Profound Benefits of Canonical Standing

[[Dear Sr. Laurel, I am one who considers himself a non-professed solitary. I have considered consecration under Canon 603, but have not found a reason to follow-through. Essentially, I envision formal consecration as a matter of primarily professing poverty, chastity, and obedience, but without benefit. For instance, confessed hermits do not receive stipends, medical insurance, pensions, or help establishing their life work, as other consecrated folk do. Recently, I read one of your posts that mentioned the "benefits" of consecration, but you did not list them; would you please expound on this topic?]]

Thanks for your question. I believe I have recently said "without benefit of consecration" rather than speaking of "the benefits of consecration" but it is true I believe consecration is beneficial to the Church as well as to the hermit and those she serves with her life. It is true that canonical (consecrated) solitary hermits do not receive stipends, insurance, pensions, assistance establishing one's life's work (which is eremitical life, nothing less and nothing other), financial support for library, retreat opportunities, housing, or expenses associated with limited apostolic ministry, and so forth. However, I think that this way of measuring the benefits of this vocation, is narrow and even superficial. It is also, at least ostensibly, self-centered. In any case, it is incomplete at best.

Thus, as I measure the benefits of canonical eremitical life, I do so not only in terms of associated rights, but in terms of obligations as well as in terms of others' expectations and the grace associated with consecration. Especially, I measure them in terms of the responsible freedom and witness value canonical standing and consecration create and sustain. Note that this way of measuring the "benefit" of consecrated eremitical life necessarily points directly to its benefit to others; it points directly to the Church and world as a whole, as well as to the hermit herself. Thus the term I use to "contain" and reflect on these dimensions of the consecrated or canonical eremitical vocation is "ecclesial"; that is, this vocation belongs to the Church and participates in a conscious, deliberate, and public way in the proclamation of the Gospel entrusted to her. 

All of the characteristics of public or canonical vocations contribute to this proclamation, and this is so whether we are speaking of the vows, the Rule a hermit writes, her stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, limited apostolic ministry, or the supervision of the vocation by legitimate superiors. All of these elements help produce a responsible freedom in the hermit which is very specifically directed to the living of the Gospel in the service of God, the People of God and a needy world. Moreover, because the Church herself recognizes and constitutes these vocations canonically, they are capable of doing so in ways private dedication ordinarily cannot and will not do. This is one of the reasons I persisted in pursuing canonical standing. It became clear to me that the Holy Spirit was working in my life in a way which made of my life a unique proclamation of the Gospel, especially as it so often is stated in paradoxical terms: divine power perfected in weakness, comfort in suffering, wealth in poverty, completion and wholeness in brokenness, and so forth.

You identify yourself as a solitary. Perhaps I can contrast that with the way I see my own vocation precisely because I am canonically professed and consecrated. Of course, I don't know how or why you use the term so I am not commenting on that, but I will say that because of the ecclesial and eremitical nature of my vocation I just can't use the term solitary as a definition of my life. The emphasis in the word solitary seems to me to stress aloneness and a lack of significant bonds; this, in turn, seems antithetical to who I am called to be.  At the very least it is a dimension I do not want to emphasize at the expense of the significant bonds associated with ecclesial vocations. Neither do I want to substitute a generic or unspecified solitude in place of desert spirituality as the Episcopal canon seems to do. Yes, I am a solitary hermit, that is, one who lives a very particular kind of solitude rooted in desert spirituality but without belonging to a community (aka, an institute) of hermits. Even so, it is my canonical standing which explicitly links aloneness with significant bonds and establishes the whole as a paradigm of paradoxical gospel meaningfulness. It is canonical standing that both requires and allows me to live my whole life in terms of the Gospel and, as one with an ecclesial vocation, to do this in the name of the Church.

At every moment I and other diocesan hermits are both called and empowered to do this in the very heart of the Church for the sake of the proclamation entrusted to her for the salvation of others. I understand the benefits of profession and consecration under canon 603 in these terms. When I write about the vows, canonical standing, responsible freedom, or freedom vs liberty and the capacity to become the person God calls me to be, or about the importance of the ministry of authority in this, etc., I am describing the benefits of canonical standing. I am doing this as one whose consecration means she is participating in and has been entrusted with the rights and  obligations of an ecclesial vocation in which she can become her truest self --- and in doing so, serve others and glorify God. Thus, again, I resist seeing myself as a solitary, while the way I measure the benefits of consecration is not in material terms, but in who I am called and empowered to be in light of this ecclesially mediated Divine call and setting apart.

Roman Catholic Solitary Religious Life?

[[Dear Sister, is there a canon in the Roman Catholic Church for solitary religious life? Where can I find it and where can I go to see into pursuing it?]]

Thanks for the questions. Please check recent posts contrasting the Anglican canon 14.3 and the Roman Catholic canon 603 for more detailed coverage of this question. Briefly, no, there is no Roman Catholic canon governing solitary religious life per se. Canon 603 governs solitary eremitical life and those professed under this canon are understood by canonists to be religious (cf below), but the canon and the life it governs is very definitely eremitical. It governs hermits, not merely "solitary religious" as the Anglican canon does. The term "solitary religious life" seems to me otherwise to be an oxymoron since, with the exception of solitary hermits professed and consecrated under c 603 who still live a specifically ecclesial vocation in the heart of the Church (and who would betray their vocation if they did not), religious life is communal.

The observation by canonist Ellen O'Hara, csj regarding those individuals professed and consecrated under canon 603: [[The term "religious" now applies to individuals with no relationship to an institute. Groups could use the category association of the faithful to have ecclesiastical identity if they wish,]]** honors the entirely excep-tional nature of this designation in this specific case. Otherwise there is no canon in Roman Catholicism which would allow for "solitary religious". That is an Anglican category, and one I am told was meant to fill a gap in canon law as the Church moved toward a way of recognizing actual solitary hermits. Unfortunately, as I have written before, because it lacks any specific vision of eremitical life which would define life under this canon, it mistakes the notion (or at least contributes to the common mistake) that merely living alone is the same as being a hermit.

I can't direct you to a non-existent canon of course. Though your questions don't seem to lead in this direction, let me note that if you have any interest in eventually being professed as a solitary hermit under c 603 you should try living as a lay hermit according to the vision of eremitical life provided by c 603. If you can do this for a period of time (several years) and find that personally and spiritually you thrive in it, you might then contact your local chancery to inquire about admission to profession and eventually, consecra-tion, under c 603. (Please note, in case some readers might consider moving to the Anglican (Episcopal) Confession to seek profession under canon 14.3, it is unlikely that any bishop there would honor such a request.) My sense is that Anglican bishops are relatively cautious in admitting to profession in this way (perhaps growing more cautious over time) and would not be open to professing someone changing ecclesial affiliations in this variation of "diocese shopping".

** O'Hara, Ellen, CSJ, Handbook of Canons 573-746, "Norms common to all Institutes for Consecrated Life" p 55. Editors Jordan Hite, TOR, Sharon Holland, IHM, and Daniel Ward, OSB.

Witnessing to the Truth that God Alone is Enough

[[Dear Sister Laurel, am I right when I say you are writing that it is not only about living alone or even the other things hermits do, but WHY they do these things that is most important? Also, I see why you say that being a solitary is not always the same as being a hermit but isn't that just a matter of externals? Don't solitaries and hermits witness to the same thing?]]

Thanks for the questions. It is always good to hear from someone grappling with what I write. It is also terrific to get a chance to clarify when I haven't been clear enough. So, let me give that a shot.

First, it is true that it is WHY hermits do what they do that is most important but it is also the case that what they do and why they do it are inextricably wed. What I mean is that they are called to witness to Christ's redemption precisely by living as they do. If they live in some other way the witness they give is a different one. Let's say that the witness one is meant to give is that redemption in Christ empowers one to give one's life in service to others, that it allows one to let go of other ways of validating one's life and simply give one's life for those Christ loves. If this is the case then one must live a life geared to ministering to others. All kinds of active ministries are possible and many different living arrangements will support and contribute to this witness.  At the same time, if one wishes to witness effectively or credibly to the redemptive power of the Christ Event one cannot live in a way which contradicts that witness.

So, let's say that because of the message of the Cross one believes that God redeems and makes infinitely meaningful the life of one who is responsive to God's grace even when they are otherwise incapable of anything else, even when the discrete gifts they have been given have been lost or made unusable, even when their weakness or sinfulness or failure is their main or only other contribution to the situation. How would this person live in order to proclaim this message? Again, there are many ways but it seems to me that one of these is more radical than all the others, namely, eremitical life.

Traditionally it has been said that the essential proclam-ation of the hermit's life is that "God alone is enough." When we unpack this statement it is a restatement of the message of the cross: God can and DOES complete us as human beings, only the God of Jesus Christ can and does  redeem us, only that same God can and does make infinitely meaningful and fruitful those lives which have been marked and marred by death and senselessness in all its forms; only God can make freely and sacrificially loving those lives that have been isolated, reviled, rejected, and betrayed at every turn. Only God can make a gift of our lives when the circumstances of life and our denial of or collusion with those circumstances have made of them all that I described above.  Only such a God can and will still the scream of anguish one becomes or transforms the muteness and emptiness of a failed and relatively loveless life without God into a jubilant canticle empowered by an inexhaustible Love-in-Act. Only the God of Jesus Christ raises the demeaned, absurd, and alienated inhumanity of a sinful and godless autonomy to New Life which is essentially "theonomous".

Moreover, the statement "God alone is enough" implies the corollary that such a God is worth entrusting our entire lives to. It says the Gospel of this God is worth giving our entire lives for. This God and his Gospel are worth letting go of all worldly possibilities, relinquishing every discrete gift and talent, every potentiality we may possess EXCEPT for hearts and lives which are open to being completed and transfigured by him in his Christ. Entrusting our lives in this way is the essence of faith. In Christ when we are empty we are full, when weak powerful, when we seem most alone we exist in communion with God and all that is grounded in God, when silenced and mute our lives can and will sing with the grace and justice of heaven. When every prop is kicked out or otherwise relinquished, God alone is enough.

This paradox is the radical form of the gospel truth which animated and flowed from Christ's own profound obedience unto death --- especially death on a cross. Similarly it is the paradox which stands at the heart of the hermit's vocation that she must (and can really only) witness to as radically as she is called to do in the silence of solitude. For this reason canon 603 defines a desert spirituality which seeks not only to define a contemplative life given over to God in prayer, but in which the externals of one's life reprise the loneliness, muteness, weakness, and  incapacity, of the cross of Christ. Again, the obedience, that is, the openness and responsiveness to God we cultivate in the personal poverty, asceticism, silence, and solitude of the desert is transfigured into the silence of solitude, the joy-filled quies of rest, stillness, and eternal life in God. THAT is the witness of the hermit's life and it is important that the externals correspond and contribute to this witness.

A Final Note on the Noun Solitary:

A solitary in the sense Anglicans use the term with regard to canon 14.3 may not live a desert spirituality. I am sure they each do witness to the redemption achieved in Christ but most apparently do not feel called to live as hermits or need to witness to the paradox of the cross with the same radicalness.** Nor, of course, is there anything wrong with that so long as the two terms are not used interchangeably. The Anglican Church recognizes solitary or "single religious" who do not need to be hermits. The Roman Catholic Church on the other hand, does not; thus, in her tradition solitaries tend to be hermits who are part of a coenobitical community but who live in cells apart from the others. Grimlaicus' Rule for Solitaries was written for just such hermit monks. Thus too, when Roman Catholicism speaks of solitary hermits she may now also mean diocesan hermits professed and consecrated under canon 603, hermits who are not part of a monastic or eremitical community. These might be considered solitaries but most use the terms hermit or anchorite as reflected in canon 603.

 **N.B., especially in this context radical does not mean better; instead it implies a kind of fundamental truth and simplicity. It is important to remember that throughout the history of the Church the fact that hermits did not engage in active ministry nor live in community led to the inevitable question of how loving and how Christian such a solitary vocation could be considered. Within the Body of Christ there are many members and, as a recent Sunday lection reminded us, they are all important to the functioning of the whole.

Hermits are spoken of as existing at the heart of the Church. Sometimes this is meant to refer to their prayer and there is certainly profound truth in this --- especially so long as we understand prayer to be the work God does within each of us in our poverty. ([[In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.]] Rom 8:26) And of course prayer would also be the language of the silence of solitude, the unique charism of eremitical life but that eschatological quies to which we are all called and from which all legitimate ministry itself flows. To witness to this basic and universal foundation and call is an act of love hermits commit to on behalf of the entire body of Christ --- another reason to insist on the ecclesial nature of such a vocation. What sense would it make otherwise?

A Brief Look at the Episcopalian Canon 14 versus the Roman Catholic Canon 603

  [[Dear Sister, you mentioned the difference between the Episcopal Canon and the Roman Catholic Canon 603. It seems to me that the Episcopal canon is more flexible than the Roman Catholic one. Roman Catholics living under c 603 have to be hermits but with the Episcopal canon they can live in many different ways as those consecrated to God.  They make public personal vows and are free to live as the Holy Spirit moves them. 

With c 603 an individual must shape their lives according to the requirements of the canon --- and from what you have said in the past, according to other canons as well. But what happens if the Holy Spirit calls a person to live differently than these canons allow for? For instance, with the Episcopal canon a person could live as a hermit some of the time and as an active religious at other times. I think this is a good thing. If you wanted to live as an active religious you would need to get your vows dispensed wouldn't you? I don't really have a question here but I do wonder what you think about this. Isn't the Episcopal canon a better option which ensures greater freedom than Canon 603?]]

Respect for Anglican Contributions to the Renewal of Eremitical Life:

Let me say that I greatly respect the place of the Episcopal Communion in the renewal of eremitical life in the contemporary Church and world. When I was first considering this life seriously after having read canon 603 and Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action one of the first contacts I made was with the Sisters of the Love of God in order to read some of the work they were publishing on eremitical life. This weekend I looked once again (after thirty years or so!) at a collection of essays entitled Solitude and Communion --- an anthology published by this same community and featuring essays by some of the really great Anglican, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic writers on eremitical life, especially on its communal dimension and the importance of the experience of redemption which must lie at its heart.

The work of these writers, folks like Sister Mary Clare SLG, AM Allchin, Dom Andre Louf, Kallistos Ware, Rolland Walls, and Sister Benedicta Ward SLG, represent genuinely pioneering work deeply rooted in the eremitical Tradition and responsive to the needs of the contemporary world. It was very gratifying to find many posts on this blog site mirroring the same conclusions on the nature of eremitical life represented in this particular collection of essays, but more importantly I was reminded again of the really seminal place the Anglican Communion has had in the renewal of eremitical life in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

And yet, I don't feel the same way about the Episcopalian Canon on solitary religious life. This is precisely because it does not define a specifically eremitical life in the way canon 603 does for the Roman Catholic Church. From my perspective this is an important deficiency, both in terms of eremitical life and in terms of religious life more generally, because it really makes individualism rather than true freedom the measure of all things. In the Episcopal Church anyone living under this canon may call themselves a hermit whether they are one or not. They only need to be living alone to do so. It is striking to me that the sharpest criticism I have heard about lives lived in this way was from an Episcopal solitary who recognized the very same problem. She noted that only a very small percentage (maybe 5%) of those calling themselves "solitaries" or hermits actually live anything remotely like that life defined in canon 603 or recognized from the eremitical tradition and desert spirituality. (cf., Roman Catholic Hermits versus Episcopal Solitaries) That means a large percentage of these "solitaries" are living neither the challenges nor values of community life (which they apparently do not feel called to) nor the radical aloneness and dependence upon God reflected in the kerygma of the Cross and typical of eremitism; yet they are considered solitary religious and hermits. I personally wonder about the wisdom of this canon on a number of levels but the problem I am focusing on here results when these folks call themselves "hermits".

Canon 14 Provides no Means of Discernment:

It seems to me the deficiency of the canon and of the discernment which necessarily accompanies and is defined by it, is directly responsible for this. Here is what I mean. Imagine that one advertises a job listing for a computer analyst and fails to spell out an adequate job description in doing so. One may get a ton of applicants with very different ideas of what it means to be a computer analyst in 2016 --- and as many differing levels of training, education, and competence as a result. Those doing the hiring also may not understand what is required and hire folks who simply are not prepared to do the job --- because they too lack an understanding of what the job entails. Remember, there is no job description, no listing of qualifications without which one can never succeed, and no spelling out of or screening for the dimensions necessary for real competence and fruitfulness! Supervisors and other team members may then find themselves unable to assist the new hires because the needs of the company cannot be met by people who do not have the capacity or the basis to be trained to do so. And of course, what happens in such a situation  to all those who need the fruit of competent analysts' work?

The question of Divine vocations to eremitical life is an even more difficult one; after all we are not dealing with a mere job. So imagine that a Church promulgates a canon which allows for solitary hermits but fails to spell out a vision of what that actually means. How will they or the people seeking to live as hermits discern such a calling?  And if they cannot discern this, then how in the world can they actually live it?  Whose vision of the life will guide in formation, both initial and ongoing? What prevents freedom from lapsing into license, solitude into isolation or the silence of solitude from being replaced by introversion seasoned with discontent --- enough to fuel the life of an institutional gadfly for instance? More, what keeps flexibility from lapsing into distortion, mediocrity, or other actual betrayals of the tradition? What ensures withdrawal from misanthropy, depression, pathological anti-social impulses and selfishness do not replace the anachoresis of authentic anchoritism? And what of the radical Gospel of a power which is perfected in weakness, a mercy which does justice, and a redemption which brings life out of death and meaning out of meaninglessness --- lived out stricter separation from the world and the silence of solitude?  What of those who need to hear this Gospel proclaimed as a hermit especially does this --- the marginalized, bereaved, isolated elderly and chronically ill? To whom do they look for evidence of the transfiguration of these things in Christ?

The Value of Canon 603 as a Normative Vision:

I think it is important to see that more than being a law, Canon 603 is a normative vision of the essence of eremitical life. When I say I live my life under this canon I am saying I live my life according to this vision and the relationships in which it establishes me. The vision itself summons me to allow God to shape my life accordingly and it affirms that God has done similarly through the centuries in ways which hermits and those looking to them have found redemptive. I do what I can do to allow this shaping and I do that in order that the Gospel proclamation that is uniquely expressed in eremitical life might be proclaimed in my own. I do not mean that my life is or is primarily meant to be a kind of generic Christian witness (though it should also do this). Instead it is a much more radical kind of witness where a personally "noisy"  (anguished) isolation symptomatic of sin and the consequences of this state of estrangement and alienation is transfigured into the silence of solitude; in this vocation the hermit's redemption is worked out in a loneliness and dependence on God which is similar to that of Jesus' life, passion, and death.

Perhaps it would help if I put the text of the two canons side by side so to speak. The difference between them is striking. First, the Episcopal Church's only canon speaking to the profession of solitary individuals: [[Title III, Canon 14; Sec. 3. Any Bishop receiving vows of an individual not a member of a Religious Order or other Christian Community, using the form for "Setting Apart for a Special Vocation" in the Book of Occasional Services , or a similar rite, shall record the following information with the Standing Committee on Religious Communities of the House of Bishops: the name of the person making vows; the date of the service; the nature and contents of the vows made, whether temporary or permanent; and any other pastoral considerations as shall be deemed necessary.]] As you can see there is absolutely nothing at all about the nature of eremitical life in the Episcopalian Canon. (Neither, contrary to some objections, is there anything particularly constraining, much less controlling or distorting (falsifying) of a solitary life in this canon.) It simply requires the proper recording of the place and nature of the person's vows, and generally specifies the rite to be used for profession.

Canon 603: Text of the Roman Catholic Vision of Solitary Eremitical Life:

Next, Canon 603 in the RCC's Revised Code of Canon Law: Can. [[603 §1. Besides institutes of consecrated life, the Church recognizes the eremitic or anchoritic life by which the Christian faithful devote their life to the praise of God and the salvation of the world through a stricter withdrawal from the world, the silence of solitude, and assiduous prayer and penance. §2. A hermit is recognized in law as one dedicated to God in the consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of the diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels, confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, and observes their own Rule or Plan of Life under his direction.]] Unlike canon 14, Canon 603 describes a recognizable and traditional eremitical life. It describes the central elements of the life including its positive motivation and ecclesial dimensions. It effectively combines these non-negotiable elements with the non-negotiable requirement of the hermit's own Rule --- a combination which assures the vocation's necessary flexibility and freedom in the Holy Spirit as well as helping protect from the potential decline into individualism and license through its institutional dimension.

When I think of Canon 603 I think of it as a kind of sacred space I can enter into for reflection, prayer, and exploration. Elements like "stricter separation from the world" or "the silence of solitude" provide doorways which both demand and allow the candidate to enter into the eremitical life more fully and see it from one perspective and then another. Besides the eremitical tradition, union with God itself shines its own light on these terms and allows one to truly understand them. Yes, these elements serve as constraints on my life but they also challenge to growth and signal vast regions of freedom (including the freedom of the prophet) which shape and are shaped by my silent dialogue with God. Canon 14:3 of itself, as far as I can see, neither necessarily invites nor inspires anything like this.

You ask if canon 14 isn't better than canon 603 because of the freedom associated with it. It seems to me that given c 603's universal and therefore universally binding vision of eremitical life as well as the protection of flexibility and personal integrity provided by the hermit's own Rule, canon 603 is less subject to the whims of individual Bishops and their personal visions of eremitical life than canon 14 might be. With Canon 603 both the hermit and the bishop are constrained by the vision set forth; there is less room for episcopal idiosyncrasies and biases. On the hermit's side of things canon 603 does not simply allow one to live any way at all and call it eremitical or "solitary" --- as canon 14 seems perhaps to do. Instead it provides a framework which empowers the hermit to plumb the depths of a life of prayer and the silence of solitude in union with God in a way which may well make of her a prophetic presence within the Church and world --- and it does this with the blessing and explicit commissioning of the Church. Since I understand freedom as the power to be the ones we are called to be, and since I find the canon to be empowering in this way, I experience canon 603 as incredibly freeing rather than constraining.

Of course I believe that God has called me to be a hermit and that doing that well (that is, in a way which witnesses to the redemption of the cross) for the rest of my life is part of that calling.  It seems to me that moving from one calling to another, one form of religious life to another, might really mean to fail to live any life vocation as fully as is needed. One of the tensions I deal with and have written about here in the past is that between active ministry and the withdrawal required by eremitical silence and solitude. But that tension has been helpful to my growth as a hermit precisely because I am professed to live the vision and grow in the wisdom of canon 603 for the rest of my life.

For instance, had I, despite my perpetual eremitical profession, been able to be an active religious at one point and then a hermit for a while and then an active religious again, as I think you describe and as is a continuing temptation, I would never have come to see that letting go of discrete gifts and talents so that the redemption God achieves in eremitical solitude IS the real gift of one's life and the gift she lives FOR others. That special kind of "seeing" --- and the witness to God's own faithfulness that must flow from it --- would never have occurred precisely because it required long term stability in the eremitical vocation to come to. In a day and age when "part time vocations" are being touted as an option to cope with this ministerial shortage or other, we especially need the witness and wisdom of those who persevere for the whole of their lives and know the freedom that comes precisely from the stability of life commitments.

RC Hermits vs Episcopal Solitaries, Followup

I have written recently that I had begun to think perhaps Episcopal solitaries were not always identical to Catholic hermits because the term hermit is a richer or at least a much more specific and demanding one than solitary and implies desert living and spirituality. The Rule of an Episcopal Anchorite confirmed this for me but today in response I also received an email from an Anglican solitary living in the UK. signed, ____ ,SCL (single consecrated life) writes:

[[I am an Anglican Consecrated Woman living in the UK (Single Consecrated Life; SCL).  I am sometimes referred to as a "solitary" because I live on my own, but in reality I am more like your Roman Catholic Order of Consecrated Virgins; OCV's.  I work. . . to provide for myself. . . . I was professed in the Single Consecrated Life and I've been in life vows for over 10 years.  My spirituality is Carmelite and when I am not obliged to work or go to Mass I remain in my little "enclosure", my very ordinary house and garden. (Ellipses used to maintain privacy) 

Many of those who are "solitaries" are NOT hermits.  There are quite a few retired professionals who have become SCL's and who like to think they are hermits because they live on state pensions and no longer have to work for their living!  I would say that probably only 1 or 2 out of twenty Anglican "solitaries" are REAL hermits. [These others are] People who go driving round to religious communities, the latest conferences and get-togethers and announcing they are "hermits".........!  ]]

So, many thanks for that response. It helps clarify wonderfully not only why canon 603 spells out the normative requirements of an eremitical life but why I have often commented that a lone pious individual is not necessarily a hermit. Eremitical solitude is a different animal than the solitude of  social isolation or the solitude associated with bereavement, retirement, prison, etc. While these can be transformed or transfigured into eremitical solitude, and while that solitude certainly can build on these, they must not be mistaken for it. Moreover, as a consequence of the original question, I have now been able to read some terminologically confused blogs by Episcopal solitaries who fail to adequately distinguish between being a solitary religious and being a hermit. The Roman Catholic canon 603 does indeed serve to protect a tradition and vocation; it is not merely about professing and consecrating individuals who neither can nor perhaps desire to be part of a Religious Institute. It is about professing solitary hermits, not individuals who desire to simply "do their own thing" for instance.

Catholic Hermits vs Episcopal Solitaries: the Same Thing?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, are the Catholic Hermit and the Episcopal Solitary the same things?]]

What a terrific question!  Until recently I have thought they were the same because the couple of Episcopal solitaries I know use the term hermit in an interchangeable way to indicate the similarity of our lives. More, they live in the same kind of situations most diocesan hermits do with a focus on the silence of solitude, prayer, penance, etc. However, I am now really uncertain that the two things are identical, partly because I don't know the canon which governs the life, and partly because, despite similarities, the word "solitary" and the word "hermit" are different in some ways.

You see, the term hermit means a "desert dweller" and while this implies (or in canon 603 explicitly requires) a solitary life, it also implies much more besides. It is not enough to simply live alone and do as one pleases. That is why canon 603 spells out the requirements of this way of life in terms of stricter withdrawal, assiduous prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, the evangelical counsels, Rule, supervision of Bishop, etc. Neither does canon 603 govern the life of a religious who simply doesn't live in or belong to a religious community but may also live a ministerial or apostolic life. Such a religious might be a "solitary religious" but she would be no hermit. Perhaps it is the case in the Episcopal church that solitary refers more to "solitary religious" and means a religious without a religious congregation than it does to one living "the silence of solitude." I really don't know and until recently had not even considered this might be the case.

One thing this underscores for me is the wisdom of canon 603 and the importance of the non-negotiable elements which qualify and define the solitary life it calls for. Similarly the choice of "the silence of solitude" as the central and (I would argue) charismatic element of the canon rather than simply "silence and solitude" or even just "solitude" becomes much clearer as I consider your question. In any case, again, I don't know the answer to your question and will try to find out for you.

Postscript: I have the answer to your question. I was reading the Rule of Rev Susan Creighton yesterday and discovered that she was professed in the early 2000's as a solitary in the Episcopal Church under a canon (Canon 14) which does indeed cover "exceptional cases" and so, religious or priests who are not part of a community. Thus, she was professed under a canon which does NOT specifically describe, or even require, an eremitical life. Instead the canon is much more general and allows a Bishop to profess someone who really does not fit the usual canonical categories. While Rev Creighton's life closely resembles that of a canon 603 hermit in the Roman Catholic Church (in fact, I believe she has used canon 603 as a guide for her own life in some ways), and while some Episcopal Bishops may require that those they profess also embrace such a desert life, there seems to be no specific canon defining the solitary eremitical life as such within the Episcopal Church. In other words, this canon is used for solitary religious or consecrated persons, but not necessarily for desert dwellers. It is not normative of eremitical life in the same way canon 603 is.