Showing posts with label canon 603 as "proviso". Show all posts
Showing posts with label canon 603 as "proviso". Show all posts

25 July 2020

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.

18 March 2015

Will Canon 603 Become the Norm for All Consecrated Hermits?

[[ Is canon 603 a kind of experiment? Is it only used for some consecrated hermits? The poster at [link omitted] says that: "In today's Church, this is no small matter, and it seems that bishops and future hermits will desire this proviso. In time, it may become the norm for consecrated Catholic hermit profession."]]

Let me  first say (repeat) that today there are two routes to profession as a consecrated (canonical) Hermit. The first is as part of a congregation or community (an institute) of hermits like the Camaldolese or Carthusians. In such a case these religious, monks, and nuns live their consecrated lives under both Canon Law (universal law) and the congregation's own law (proper law) --- their Rule, Constitutions, and Statutes. In such cases while Canon Law already applies juridically to their lives in many ways, canon 603 does not. Sometimes institutes of consecrated life will allow an individual to live as a hermit. If they do, this will be because the institute's proper law (the law which is proper to this congregation itself only) allows this but the person is not professed as a hermit. The second route to canonical profession and consecration is as a solitary hermit under Canon 603. Other canons which are part of the Church's universal law of religious life will also apply to this individual but Canon 603 is the defining canon which provides for the hermit's legitimate superior and defines the hermit's proper law as a Rule or Plan of Life she herself writes.

Canon 603 is not an experiment although it is a relatively new canon governing a new (since 1983) and rare form of consecrated life, namely the solitary eremitical life lived outside or without membership in a community or institute of consecrated life. Despite the fact that those of us living it or those administering it are still finding our way with it together, it is not going to become the norm for consecrated Catholic hermits more generally. Those belonging to communities (institutes of consecrated life) already are bound to legitimate superiors and have proper as well as canon law to which they are bound through their vows. If someone in one of these groups wants to become a solitary hermit, they will need to pursue Canon 603 itself along with exclaustration and/or an indult of departure. Neither is it, then, a "proviso" one might or might not use and still be a solitary  consecrated hermit. Canon 603 is already the norm for solitary Catholic hermits. Solitary eremitical life is the new form of consecrated life that Canon 603 establishes in universal law. It is the very purpose of the Canon, nothing more or less, and nothing other. For further information, please see posts on Canon 603 -- history.

Meanwhile, privately vowed or dedicated individuals wishing to become solitary consecrated hermits (solitary canonical hermits) can see their chancery personnel for assistance in entering or petitioning to enter a mutual process of discernment and pursuing this under Canon 603. Chancery personnel may well explain to these individuals that they are lay persons and not considered consecrated hermits or professed religious; they will also explain the scope and purpose of canon 603 to be clear about what the person is petitioning to begin a discernment process in regard to. However, there is a chance that if a person shows up on the chancery doorstep insisting they are a consecrated hermit already, despite not being canonically professed, they will not be seen as a good candidate for discernment --- at least not at that point in time.

10 March 2015

Canon 603 and Some Misconceptions

[[Sister Laurel, what does it mean to call canon 603 a "proviso"? Here is the passage [from something I read online] that has me confused, [[What is cited in The Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the proviso of CL603, and by virtue and fact of the specific vows required of each state of life in the Church, should suffice to explain why consecrated Catholic hermits (and also the consecrated virgins and widows) are part of the Consecrated Life of the Church--although they can have originally derived from the Hierarchy or the Laity.  Likewise, consecrated Catholic hermits (virgins, widows, religious brothers and sisters) are not representative nor part of the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, as in Holy Orders of priests and bishops.]] I am also confused by the following [also from something I read online] [[The Catholic aspiring to the consecrated state of life as an eremite, must then fulfill the requirements in profession of vows and live in accordance with the cited specifics in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, of the institutes of the consecrated life of the Church.And, if the aspiring hermit requests and a bishop agrees, then to fulfill the additional provisions of Canon Law 603.]]

I can understand why you are confused. There are several problems with the first passage cited. First Canon 603 is not a "proviso". It is not a conditional statement or stipulation attached to an agreement. It is a norm which, by itself alone, provides for and defines a form of consecrated life lived in law and in the name of the Church. I don't know why anyone would refer to c 603 in this way unless 1) she does not understand the word proviso, or 2) she is trying to make of c 603 a conditional option added to a larger binding contract or set of statutes which then may or may not be used by a diocese at their discretion. In such a case she is simply mistaken in this. Granted, canon 603 is a Canon in the larger code of canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps it could bear the name "provision" since it provides for a singular form of consecrated life (though this fails to capture the normative nature of a canon) however, it does not have a conditional or provisional character. So, I understand and share your confusion with such a characterization. I think the poster's mistaken meaning is made clear in problem # 6 below.

The second area of difficulty is the division of the People of God into Lay and Hierarchy. The proper terms are ordinarily laity and clerics or laity and clergy or even lay persons and ordained. Though the entire Church is hierarchical we also technically refer to the hierarchy of the Church as the clergy from Deacon to Bishops and higher. When we refer to the consecrated state of life or "consecrated life" however, which can be drawn from either laity or clergy, the Church is very careful to point out that this does not constitute part of the hierarchical structure of the Church; this is important because once not so long ago our Mass prayers referred to priests, religious, and laity as though there were three castes and religious were part of the hierarchical structure of the Church. This contributed to the highly problematical notion that lay life was an "entry level" vocation and religious (or consecrated) life was a 'higher' vocation with priests being even higher.

Today we note that the term lay has two distinct senses, 1) a hierarchical one in which laity includes all baptized who are not clerics (this also implies all religious and consecrated persons who are likewise not also clerics), and 2) a vocational one in which those in the lay state are contrasted with both religious (those publicly professed), consecrated persons (those in the consecrated state of life), and the clergy (the ordained). So, for instance, vocationally speaking I am a religious and member of the consecrated rather than the lay state of life. Hierarchically speaking, however, I am a lay person. My pastor, for instance, is also a religious and member of the consecrated state of life vocationally speaking. Hierarchically speaking, however, he is a cleric or priest. Lay hermits (those with private vows or even without them) are lay in both the vocational and hierarchical senses of the term. This is why in sec 873ff the CCC notes, "The term "laity" is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church."

The third problem is that the Catholic Church does not presently have consecrated widows who belong to the consecrated state of life or the "consecrated life" in the Church. While this vocation existed in the ancient Church and Pope John Paul II wrote about it hoping it would be included in canon law to be made part of Church life once again as a public and ecclesial vocation, and while some Bishops have accepted the dedication of widows and are required to be open to "new forms of consecrated life" (c 605 requires this), Canon 605 also states that any new form of consecrated life must be ratified by the Vatican (the Pope). In the case of a vocation to consecrated widowhood this has not been done. It therefore does not represent a form of consecrated life in the Church today though there are significant hopes that one day this will change.

The fourth problem is with the reference to Catholic Hermits or other members of the Consecrated state not being representative of nor part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as are priests and Bishops. This sentence is confusing because it can be read two ways: 1) Consecrated Life is not representative of the hierarchy or 2) Consecrated Life is not representative of the Church nor is it part of the hierarchy. While the consecrated state of life does not constitute part of the hierarchical structure of the Church, those in the consecrated state are certainly representative of the Church herself. They are specifically commissioned to live out the various forms of consecrated life in a representative way in the name of the Church. Thus they are Catholic religious or Catholic hermits. Lay persons live the lay state similarly which is why they may call themselves Catholics or Catholic laity. The lay state is entrusted to them when they are consecrated in baptism and they are commissioned through the Sacraments of initiation to live it well. This means every member of the Church is representative of the Church in some way --- though I agree, they are not all of the hierarchy. Some are representative of the clerical state (Catholic priests and deacons). Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, and Pope represent the hierarchy proper while all are part of the Laos tou Theou. Unfortunately, it sounds like the poster you cited could be arguing a form of clericalism which says only clergy represent the Church!


The fifth problem comes in your second citation and has already been written about in a previous post here. The term "institute" refers to a religious community or congregation of some sort, not to a legal norm, requirement, principle, or statute. Consecrated life has three basic forms, community life (both ministerial and contemplative in a variety of institutes), solitary eremitical life (c 603), and consecrated virginity lived in the world (c 604).

The sixth problem is related to problem #1 above. As noted above, Canon 603 is not a set of "additional requirements" appended to these other supposed "institutes" and requirements. It is the ONLY way in which a person can become a solitary member of the consecrated eremitical state of life and thus live that life in the name of the Church. If one wants to become a consecrated hermit without joining a congregation it MUST be through this canon. There is NO OTHER way. Neither oneself nor one's diocese can choose another option (say, private vows) nor treat this canon as optional or "provisional" and still allow one to enter the solitary consecrated eremitical state. This is what makes canon 603 so very unique; it extends the category "religious" and thus, the possibility of public vows and consecration to a person without any link to an institute of consecrated life. (cf Handbook on Canons 573-746, p. 55 on c 603.2)

The seventh problem is also related to treating Canon 603 as a set of "additional requirements" but more specifically suggesting these are added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other requirements or "institutes" of the Catholic Church. While the CCC is an important compendium of the teaching and life of the Church designed to give every Catholic a basic sense of what the Church believes and teaches as well as how her members live this faith, in regard to the consecrated eremitical life it is more descriptive than prescriptive. For hermits belonging to Institutes of Consecrated Life what is prescriptive of their life (what prescribes how they are to live while extending commensurate rights and marking their ecclesial obligations) is law, namely, canon law and the Institute's own proper law (her constitutions, statutes and Rule).

For the solitary hermit consecrated under canon 603 what is prescriptive of her life is similar: Canon law (especially c 603 but other canons as well), and her approved Rule (given a formal Bishop's declaration of approval). The Rule, which the hermit writes herself, serves as the c 603 hermit's own "proper law" while Canon 603 in particular especially represents universal law in her life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes dimensions of such lives but is not binding in the same way universal and proper law are. In fact, some parts of the CCC (like paragraphs 920-921) must be read in light of the Code of Canon Law (as well as the Catechism's own glossary), not the other way around! To put the Catechism in a more primary place and add c 603 as a "proviso" or an additional, conditional requirement, for instance, is to completely misunderstand the nature of the CCC, its relation to Canon Law in these matters, and especially then, the vocation to solitary consecrated eremitical life and the role of c 603 in that life.

Thanks again for your questions. They were excellent. For the time being I am going to distance myself from the continuing list of misconceptions being posted on the blog you have cited. Not only is it Lent, but I have some other writing, another project, and one other question to complete which means I won't be able to get back to you again for several days in case you have further questions; (it may be Saturday or later before I can do this). Besides, this matter of the distinction between lay hermits and hermits consecrated under canon 603 really has been explained here many times in one way and another, several times quite recently, and I am feeling a tiring and kind of sad futility in trying to clarify or even occasionally correct what may, at least for some persons who blog about this, really be a willful distortion and refusal to hear.

You see, it is one thing when a single critical  and canonically obscure or complex word is misunderstood here and there or when there is legitimate and honest disagreement between knowledgeable people; it is another when entire texts are wrested from their ecclesial context and twisted in a thoroughgoing way to conform to an entrenched delusional system. Your own question made me aware that perhaps the situation I was addressing was more the latter than the former so I am grateful you posed it for that reason too. The first kind of situation can and should be dealt with through discussion; both persons come away ahead then. The second cannot. While I feel strongly that canon 603 needs to be better understood, and more strongly that folks not be misled, it is that second kind of situation from which I need to distance myself.

Meanwhile, your own questions and those of any reader here are something I am happy to continue responding to --- though from now on it may be without the passages they cite. Thus, I encourage you to please feel free to check older posts under the appropriate labels if questions remain or are raised in the meantime.