On Chosing Transparency

[[Dear Sister, it's me again! if someone wanted to live as a more physically hidden hermit than you do, maybe even as an anonymous hermit, would they be able to do that as a diocesan hermit? Would it be wrong to "out" them? I heard someone who is seeking canonical approval say they thought maybe they could do this to raise the falling standards of eremitic life. They said that would include being anonymous because that is a much more humble and hidden way of living the life. I wondered if that would be okay, partly because of what you have written about this vocation being a public one. Do people become hermits to show others how to do it? That just seems like a crazy idea to me --- not that someone shouldn't do their best, but become a hermit to show others how to live this vocation? Nope, that seems crazy to me.]]

Thanks for your questions. What you describe in the second part of your question is a known-phenomenon with some folks entering religious life, but it doesn't really work there as a reason to enter, nor would it work with c 603. Canon 603 hermits write their own Rules of Life  and in doing so they are the ones who define how they will live the elements of c 603. If a diocesan hermit wants to live a very strict hiddenness, if she believes this is what God is calling her to, she would make that clear in the Rule she submits for approval. The diocese would need to read and "vet" this Rule to see if it is truly liveable and consistent. If the life it describes seems unbalanced, for example, the formation team might ask the hermit to change that in some way --- and they will certainly pay attention to whether or not the person is capable of living a healthy eremitical life in touch with and capable of truly speaking to the contemporary world. 

Anyone who has been in religious life is apt to know someone who entered the community with the sense that they are going to change things. Usually, these are young adults "feeling their wheaties" (so to speak) after having been to college and/or graduate school and being stuffed full of new ideas on what community life should be and not be, how liturgy is to be celebrated, styles of leadership that are preferred, and any number of other things theological or spiritual. On the other hand, some may enter with the thought that they will single-handedly drag the community back to the "more traditional" way of life, their eyes fixed too exclusively on centuries past. 

Ordinarily, the candidate and then the novice (especially during novitiate!!) comes to find out how little she has understood from the outside, how much she has to learn from those who have struggled with the tension between contemporary life and tradition while listening deeply to the voice of God in the present, and how truly transparent a life of prayer requires one to be. Some of these folks make significant adjustments and do very well. Others find the learning curve too steep and leave after a relatively short time in formation because they lack the humility, flexibility, or docility the vocation requires. Should someone really try becoming a diocesan hermit to show others how to live as a "real hermit," I personally doubt any diocese would accept them, not least because the person would not be able to enter whole-heartedly into a substantive discernment/formation process. If anonymity is part of what they are trying to show others constitutes the "real hermit" way, the motive could be far removed from true humility!! Dioceses know how to look for motives and what drives the person to petition as they have.

You see, with c 603 life, the situation is somewhat different for at least three reasons: 1) the canon is not written in absolutes but, at least in certain ways, in relative terms (for instance, stricter separation from the world is not absolute separation from the world, nor does it refer first of all to the material world that is God's good creation); further, therefore, the terms of the canon don't usually have a single or univocal meaning, instead they embody not only differences but varying depths and degrees of meaning; 2) the vocation is a solitary one, not meant for a community of hermits; elements of the canon will be conditioned by the person's own history (and vice versa!), and 3) The Holy Spirit works with each hermit to inspire them in the way God wills. Since the hermit reveals the heart of the Church to the Church and the world, each hermit may do this in a different way to be effective. What is lifegiving and a means to genuine freedom for one hermit may not work well for another hermit. N.B., these points also provide the reasons the Church asks each diocesan hermit to write her own Rule of Life. At the same time they are implied in the church's position on c 603 vocations not being allowed to create a religious community of c 603 hermits while allowing them to come together in a laura that respects each hermit's own Rule of Life and individual eremitical path. 

The question regarding anonymity is one I have written about just lately so please check recent posts for more than I provide here. Yes, a diocesan hermit can remain hidden and very strictly so, however, if she should try to maintain a public presence of sorts (like I do with this blog), she will be required to provide a name and the diocese that professed and is responsible (or to whom she is accountable) for her hermit life. She is accountable not just to her diocesan leadership, but to the entire People of God for what she writes and says as a diocesan hermit -- so long as she claims publicly to be this. The choice is either to remain entirely hidden and anonymous or to claim one's identity fully and openly because this is a public vocation and folks touched by this life have a right to know who this supposed "Catholic Hermit" is. I'm not sure what you are imagining when you speak of "outing" someone, but I can imagine situations where someone is aware of the identity of a person who claims to be a Catholic Hermit and who might be obliged to provide at least the name of the hermit's Diocese so long as she is insisting on remaining anonymous. Of course, one would speak directly to the hermit before doing that!

As I have already noted then, this has to do with accountability for the vocation.  If one wishes to participate online, for instance, and does so while identifying herself as a consecrated Catholic Hermit, then she cannot remain anonymous. If one identifies oneself as a diocesan hermit, for instance, or desires to legitimately call oneself a Catholic Hermit, one is also obliged to identify oneself sufficiently to be accountable for the vocation and to the people to whom one is ministering because she ministers in the name of the Church. Anonymity and the public claiming of a consecrated ecclesial vocation cannot be exercised simultaneously. To the degree one makes such claims, one must be open about one's canonical identity.

 Speaking to parish at Mass during pandemic

There is a risk in this, of course, but those of us who maintain a public presence as diocesan hermits have weighed the costs and found them worthwhile in being true to our vocations,  to the Church who consecrated us, and the God who calls us to this life. For instance, five years ago a person writing under the Catholic Hermit designation (Joyful Hermit's profile and blog list) called my diocese and accused me of crimes. Her call was handed around to several people who neither knew me nor knew of me and then, she apparently received a return call informing her that I was indeed a diocesan hermit in good standing and if she really felt she had a case against me, she should take me to court. (The diocese is not responsible for me in those terms,*** but I also believe they knew Joyful had no true grounds for legal action.)  

I first read about this situation (and more as you will see!) in one of Joyful's blog articles. Here is one place that occurred (I am not sure now if it was the first place I read this. I apologize for the ugliness of the speculation in this citation. A link is provided in case there is a concern I have twisted what she actually said, or quoted Joyful incompletely or out of context.)

But I have not met anyone as persistently evil. hateful, and miscreant as this one who by trickery got me to email her over 16 years ago, and who since has been a nasty, derisive, and detracting, public voice ever since. We have so much not in common, sadly, but that could shift if not for the devils' influence, and a sickness of pride, presumption, and envy that has known no ceasing for over 16 years. No amount of prayers or various techniques offered to psychologically or spiritually get an alliance with her, for there is evil and hate in that person, a particular animus against me that has settled in the person. Her main beef seems my writing as a Catholic hermit, of which I am, of course. But she has a need to be superior, seems to resent competition of another Catholic hermit writing, or so say others who have observed this unChristian situation over the years.

But as had been my lived experience, Catholics tend not to stand up against such type of evil as they fear the devil to turn on them as well. Even her Vicar General who her Bishop's office (said they had never heard of her as a canonical hermit in their diocese!) did not want to intervene, not even find out who she is and guide her to not dox nor harass me using internet, given they are penal codes in her state. They suggested I take civil legal action against her.... So much for diocese hermits being directed and supervised by their bishops (or as she has added, by a "designee" and not needing to be a priest....

If not for the Catholic and hermit reality, I still think this person who represents so many Catholics, especially women, would continue the ugliness regardless, as long as I keep writing, for she uses what I write as her foil often enough, as her fodder to come up with a platform to "preach" and try to be "someone with status," thus her inventing precedents and giving herself impetus and note to what ought to be a hidden life of a hermit. So she puts me down publicly in order to try to build up what seems a spiritual emptiness, or a lack of inner security or healthy love of how God created her, or whatever issues going on--perhaps envy that I am heterosexual and have had a family, that I am educated with higher degrees, or that I'm a persecuted, suffering mystic and victim soul.  (Seeking Kind Catholics) 

Joyful (who has never met me personally, nor contacted me directly about her 16+ years' worth of concerns with me) is still telling that story about my diocese disavowing me, not only on her more recent blog (cf above link) but in her recent videos on Joyful Hermit Speaks, though without making clear the diocese's clarification that they do know me. (For example, Having Trouble, Moving On (cf, 20:51ff, but the whole video gives context.) Originally, it seems to me she wanted to call my credibility into question; most recently she has used the story to call into question the wisdom of c 603 and the fidelity of responsible bishops. I find (and, for a number of years, have found) the situation irritating, occasionally infuriating, and almost always deeply perplexing because of the groundless speculations that are thrown up as truth. At the same time, I have chosen to be present online in a transparent way and that means that, unfortunately, my diocese may occasionally get a phone call from someone like Joyful Hermit. That is the choice I made in identifying myself online as a Diocesan Hermit of and for the Diocese of Oakland, and as I look back at the past 17 years and the good that has come from them and as I move toward the anniversary of my consecration on 02. September, I would say that even in light of these kinds of personal attacks, my decision was a good one, and I am grateful to God for the way God has led me!

*** As noted before, on the day of her consecration (the day of her perpetual profession,) a diocesan hermit signs a waiver of liability so that should she leave the consecrated state she cannot sue the diocese for past wages, etc. As I have said before, I suppose that this waiver could also cover things like bail and fines, etc should a hermit get into legal trouble, but it is not primarily about that.

Questions on Catholic Hermit Blog and Blogger

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I was reading Catholic Hermit: Time to Praise among other related posts on this blog, and I wondered how a diocese could allow a hermit to live in substandard living conditions for years at a time. I also wondered how they could let a consecrated Catholic hermit spend the majority of her time re-habbing an old farmhouse to use as a hermitage and then to just move on to somewhere else (she says in another post that place may have to be a shelter!) when the rehab is finished. What raised questions for me is this hermit's description of living an essentially unbalanced eremitical life of physical labor she is ill-equipped for and which increased her own chronic pain, led to or worsened unnecessary injuries and unanticipated expenses --- all without assistance or support of any kind from her diocese. Is this typical? It seems unconscionable that a diocese could treat a hermit this way --- without guidance or assistance in housing even to the point of allowing the hermit to write about maybe needing to go to a shelter lest they be "homeless" and out on the streets. How could a diocese allow this? It all reflects badly on them -- the Church I mean. What am I missing?]]

Introduction, Continuing Questions Regarding the Blog/Blogger Cited

Thank you for your questions. I will not pull punches here. I am more than a little frustrated by similar questions and by the situation which prompts them because again and again this particular blogger is responsible for confusing those who come to her blog after googling, "Catholic hermit". How ever good her reasons or motivations are, she is misrepresenting a significant vocation with her own eccentric way of living and inaccurate way of describing herself. 

However, also according to her own blogging  she is not a consecrated Catholic hermit when these terms are used in the way the Roman Catholic Church uses them. So, before I answer the questions you have asked about hermits and the responsibility of dioceses let me say once again, the author of the blog you cited is a Catholic laywoman and hermit with private vows. Her lay vocation is to be esteemed but she is responsible for her life in the way any other lay person is; the Church has not initiated her into the consecrated state and for this reason the local Church/bishop, et al, are not responsible for her in the limited way the church/bishop would be for a publicly professed/consecrated hermit.

The Real Question: The Church's Exercise of Responsibility in Regard to Those She Consecrates

Your questions, while triggered by this person's situation, are more about the Church's exercise of responsibility in regard to those she consecrates as hermits, so let me speak more specifically to these. My own sense is a Catholic (specifically a c 603) hermit's living circumstances are overseen by her bishop and delegate. (Hermits who belong to canonical institutes live their lives under the supervision of leadership in that institute.) My own delegate, for instance, understands her role as helping ensure that the life I live is a healthy one, one leading to human wholeness, holiness, and representing the best eremitical life calls for and calls forth from me for the sake of the Church and world. I keep her apprised of my spiritual life, of course, but it also means that generally speaking she is aware of my physical health and the way I live my life both in this hermitage and in my parish. She is similarly aware of my significant relationships (friendships and professional), work, intellectual pursuits, the things I do for recreation or creative outlets, and the contents of the Rule by which I live my life. (All of these concerns are my own responsibility but my delegate assists me as needed both for my own sake, and for the sake of the vocation to eremitical life itself. She does this on my behalf as well as on behalf of the local and universal Church.)

Temporary situations may cause a certain imbalance in a hermit's life. Medical situations may mean she needs assistance with personal care, trips to the doctor's, etc, for a period of several weeks or even a few months. However, living situations which are substandard as described on the "Catholic Hermit" blog and cannot be rectified in a reasonable time (several months) at an expense the hermit can truly afford would not be allowed, not least because both the hermit's health and vocation are threatened by them. 

While a diocese does not subsidize any hermitage a diocesan hermit buys, the diocese does have the right to expect the canonical hermit to make prudent investments of time, money, and energy with the help of knowledgeable professionals (realtors, attorneys, bankers, etc).  Should the diocesan hermit make a bad financial investment and be caught in a situation like that described in the blog you cited (inadequate medical care, insufficient hygiene and access to personal necessities like toilets and showers, dangerous vermin-ridden living conditions, inadequate conditions for food preparation and storage, insufficient financial resources, etc.)  they would have the right to expect the hermit to find a way out of the situation within a reasonable period of time. If she needed assistance in this a diocese could be expected to try to find people (or help the hermit locate people) who can offer some assistance but the overall responsibility remains the hermit's own. However, let it be noted, a hermit's extended inability to live his/her Rule of life might well mean, for example, the diocese will eventually need to dispense the hermit's vows.

I don't believe any diocese would allow a publicly professed hermit to buy a house to fix up as a hermitage if that project was going to take five years and more of apparently full-time effort by the hermit herself; they would especially not allow it if the hermit was merely going to sell the property at the end of that time and had nowhere to go after this. (Dioceses of course can (and do) allow a hermit to build or remodel a hermitage, but they have a right and even an obligation to set limits in terms of finances, time frames, living conditions, and so forth. The life is a contemplative one, after all; it is a healthy one and needs to be stably established. A diocese might also put off admittance to new stages of the life until a person is finished with the project and can truly live their eremitical life consistently and fully. If such a project was approved or allowed and was projected to take a year or two, a diocese might wait until its completion to admit one to perpetual profession and consecration, for instance.)

A fulltime long-term building situation would become even more objectionable if those five years involved insufficient professional assistance (skilled carpenters, licensed plumbers, electricians, etc) or skill which led to numerous injuries linked to accidents with power tools the hermit was incompetent to wield skillfully. After all, the prudential witness value of such a life is dubious; going it entirely alone when this leads to personal harm is not really typical of eremitical life nor does it witness to a stable state of life lived under a vow of religious poverty. Moreover, since it means the long-term suspension of the hermit's Rule for insufficient reasons, it lacks integrity. While dioceses allow hermits to choose and finance their own living arrangements according to what is allowed by religious poverty and their own budgets, and while manual labor is certainly permissible and even essential to the life, that hermit must be able to live her Rule in the midst of any building and re-habilitating. Some temporary adjustments in this can be made, just as may occur in times of illness or injury, of course, but these are worked out under the supervision of directors, delegates, and (sometimes) the hermit's bishop.

Most of your questions about the diocese's behavior presume the author of the blog you cited is really a Catholic hermit who is publicly admitted to the consecrated state of life and all the rights and obligations thereto. Most of them also dissolve once it is made clear this person is NOT publicly professed or consecrated and has not been entrusted with nor accepted the rights and obligations of living eremitical life in the name of the Church. Still, no, this situation is not typical! 

To reiterate, while it is required that hermits be self-supporting in some sense (this can include disability and similar aid) and take on all the expenses associated with living this life, it is possible (though not required) for dioceses to assist the hermit temporarily should emergency medical or other expenses be necessary which are more than the hermit herself can manage. What is true for consecrated hermits is that when unexpected circumstances come up the hermit and those who assist her will generally work together to determine what solutions are possible which best preserve the hermit's commitments to the Rule she is morally and legally bound to live and to canon 603 under which she lives her Rule and which her Rule "unpacks". They will do this because they all have a commitment both to the hermit and to the solitary eremitical vocation itself which they will want to see protected, nurtured, and lived as the gift of God to the Church that it is.

I hope this is helpful.