Showing posts with label canon 603 as ecclesial vocation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canon 603 as ecclesial vocation. Show all posts

04 February 2020

Is This Correct? What Happens When. . .?

[[ Sister Laurel, is this correct? "If, for example, a diocese hermit had a new bishop come to the diocese, and that bishop did not want diocese hermits, the diocese hermit would need to find a diocese in which the bishop was accepting hermits under his direction, and relocate. Or, such as a diocese hermit in the UK, when a serious illness occurred, that hermit had to relocate to be close to medical facilities and practitioners, so has had to ask the diocese bishop of the diocese in which she had to relocate, to accept this hermit's diocese hermit designation. If the bishop of the new diocese would decline, then the diocese hermit would need to accept being a hermit of the traditional, historical type and not be that of CL603. These are just hypothetical situations and examples"]]

Thanks for the question. The first statement is entirely incorrect. Remember, a diocesan hermit does not make her vows to a particular bishop. She makes them to God in the bishop's hands. In so doing she becomes a hermit of the Diocese of x --- rather like diocesan priests are priests not just in a particular diocese but priests of a specific diocese. When a new bishop comes to a diocese a diocesan hermit in perpetual vows does not need to worry about relocating at all. The new bishop assumes pastoral/episcopal responsibility for the whole diocese and that includes any and all diocesan hermits. My own profession, for instance, is perpetual and canonical. I have been given a particular "standing in law" and my vocation is governed on the diocesan level (though recognized by the universal Church), no matter who is or becomes the bishop. When I speak of the rights and obligations of canonical standing, freedom from arbitrary situations like the one described in your quotation are part of the "rights" involved.

Nothing undoes this canonical standing except a formal (i,e., canonical) act of dispensation. There is nothing  hypothetical about this situation (nor that of Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio). There have been four bishops since I have been professed and consecrated (one was interim). This means I have had three different bishops as legitimate superiors (the Vicar for Religious served during the interim). There was never the least question about my ceasing to be a diocesan hermit due to these shifts. Now, it may be true that a bishop sympathetic to the vocation does a better job in relation to his pastoral role with a diocesan hermit than one who is not open to using c 603, but the hermit is perpetually professed and a new bishop becomes the new superior whether he agrees with the implementation of c 603 or not.

New Bishops in Cases of Temporary Profession:

If, on the other hand, a diocesan hermit is only temporary professed under c 603 (and therefore, also not yet solemnly consecrated),  and a new bishop is installed who does not want to implement c 603, there is a chance he could simply allow those vows to lapse and refuse to admit the hermit to perpetual profession. I have never heard of such a case. My sense is that, instead, the bishop would recognize the time and significant process (and commitment!) that is already spent and underway; he would discern in good faith this particular vocation even if he had already decided not to admit anyone else to profession under c 603 in the foreseeable future. Since he can easily delegate someone to be the hermit's superior and act as such for him, such a situation would not be onerous. Moreover (at least this tends to be true in larger dioceses), since bishops rarely deal with hermits until the Vicars for Religious are ready to recommend profession, the c 603 vocations are, again, not a burdensome matter for bishops.

After all, when one is temporary professed there have to be really good reasons for not admitting her to perpetual profession and consecration. A bishop can honestly discern reasons not to admit to perpetual profession, of course, but these will be done in good faith and not merely because of personal bias. (When one makes temporary vows, personally speaking, one is still disposing of one's life entirely; one is giving oneself to God and his People without limits, despite the temporary nature of the vow itself. This capacity is necessary if one is to be admitted to vows at all, even when the vow itself is temporary.) Remember too, others are and have also been involved in the process of discernment over a period of years. We are dealing with Divine vocations to the consecrated state and, generally speaking, bishops will not act whimsically.

Moving in Cases of Medical Necessity:

In medical situations like of those like Sister Rachel Denton in the UK, one would need to know the whole situation to say how inevitable the outlined solution is.This is because what is also true is that when one needs to relocate because of medical needs, the situation can be temporary or permanent. If it is a temporary situation and the hermit is perpetually professed, my sense is the hermit's bishop would speak to the bishop in the new locale and assure the hermit's ability to continue to live her public profession with the assistance of the new bishop --- much as when a priest is moved temporarily and granted temporary faculties. A hermit's diocese will, among other things, assure the hermit is professed and in good standing.

It is only when the relocation is a permanent one that the new bishop must  accept the hermit's vows and assume full responsibility for such a vocation in his diocese. In the case of medical need I think it would be unusual for a bishop to refuse to accept the hermit's vows. His acceptance of this hermit in this situation would not need to mean a change in diocesan policy if the bishop was otherwise unwilling to implement c 603. However, if the bishop refuses and one moves permanently to this diocese anyway, then one's vows cease to be binding due to a material change in the circumstances under which they are valid. The original diocese may dispense the vows or otherwise declare the material change renders the vows invalid. (I don't know if they can or prudently need to do both.) What is clear is that in such a situation, the hermit leaves the consecrated state and returns to the lay state whether or not she continues to live as a hermit.

If, on the other hand, the vows are temporary, several different things can happen. Hopefully the medical treatment will allow the hermit to return to her diocese and truly live eremitical life in time to make perpetual profession. If not, both the hermit and the home diocese will need to decide what to do. So long as adequate supervision and regular spiritual direction can be maintained, renewing temporary vows while on "medical leave" of some sort is a possibility. Expediting perpetual vows is also possible (and most charitable) in some cases. Approaching the new diocese for admission to profession (whether temporary or perpetual) is another option so long as one can live one's Rule. Canon 603 is no longer an untried and entirely novel vocation. We now have examples of well-lived and edifying eremitical lives, rare though this vocation will always be. As a result, once a hermit has been professed under c 603 people will ordinarily work to discern the best thing for the hermit and for this canonical vocation itself.

Reminder to all readers, if there is a link for your source, please include it with your question.

16 October 2019

On Canonical Standing and Responsible Freedom

[[Dear Sister Laurel, when you write that one of the reasons some hermits choose canonical standing is because of the freedom it gives them from being concerned with peoples' opinions about them was this your own reason for seeking canonical standing? I am asking because it seems kind of petty to be concerned about what people think of you or your vocation.]]

Thanks for your question. Yes, it can be petty to be concerned re what people think about you or your vocation, I agree. But the situation I was responding to in my other post seemed to me to be about more than that. It involved what I heard to be an intensely critical attitude of others which, in my own experience, is an intensification of an entire constellation of beliefs and attitudes which we might call "the world". Namely, the person writing me found that much of his choices regarding prayer, silence and solitude, his likes, attempts to be faithful to his deepest self, and so forth, were being criticized and more, actually conflicted with much of what the world around him considers "normal" or perhaps, "healthy" (although that is not a word he used in his questions). When this sort of global "attitude" is what one meets at every turn in one's attempts to be faithful to one's call, it can be destructive as it eats away at one's confidence in the soundness of one's discernment. Thus it leads to temptation, mainly the temptation to conform oneself to the beliefs, attitudes, activities and general culture of those surrounding one but potentially at the expense of one's integrity and deepest self.

At such times, having one's discernment confirmed by those in leadership in the Church can result in a form of freedom. As a result of such confirmation one is able to trust in one's discernment even in times of difficulty and doubt and this is immensely empowering. In the solitude of the hermitage one continues to pray, work, and study in silence with and in the presence of God; over time one will find one's certainty of one's vocation deepens and pervades every moment and mood of one's life but there must be this essential freedom to disregard the culture that has, until this time, defined a whole constellation of what was considered normal and worthy of being aspired to. Canonical standing, which always comes only after a significant period of mutual discernment and which is accompanied by the assumption of public rights and obligations, is incredibly important in establishing a person in a vocation which is little-understood, less-esteemed, and often caricatured with the help of stereotypes and those who live the vocation badly or just eccentrically. So yes, I affirm canonical standing as an important context allowing hermits, especially those who must live in urban and other populated settings, to persevere and mature in their vocations.

However, while this is a valid and important reason for seeking canonical standing, I don't think it is a sufficient reason for doing so. Instead I think there are two other reasons which are more important: First,  the eremitical vocation I live is an ecclesial vocation. It "belongs to the Church" and was entrusted to her by Christ. This vocation recognizes "the silence of solitude" not only as the physical context of the life, but also as the goal of the life (we are to come to the stillness and peace of life in God, and thus to the fullness of human existence where God alone completes us), and the unique gift or "charism" hermits bring to the Church and world. Second, the ecclesial hermit is meant to witness to the Gospel of God in Christ; she is called to witness to the way in which the Gospel saves. Ecclesial hermits will have had a an experience in silence and solitude which is profoundly redemptive and will need to witness to this movement of the Holy Spirit. (cf., On the Redemptive Experience at the Heart of the Eremitical Vocation)

In my own life I embraced eremitical life and especially canonical eremitical life for these three reasons. The most important one, to my mind, is the need to witness to the redemptive way God has worked in my life in the silence of solitude. It is important to note that as I understand it, this cannot be separated from the ecclesial nature of my vocation, nor from its public nature; instead, it makes this public and ecclesial context essential. The Gospel is entrusted to the Church. It lives and works first of all in her midst and is the very reason for her existence. For me personally, seeking canonical standing was the only way to continue living such a vocation and meet the requirements of eremitical life in real and literally responsible freedom. I hope this is helpful.

04 January 2019

Once Again on the Importance of Canonical Standing in Nurturing and Supporting the Eremitical Vocation

[[Dear Sister, I wondered if one of the reasons you support canonical standing for hermits has to do with the difficulty and importance of people understanding that solitude is more about communion or community than it is about isolation? What I was thinking was that it takes people to discern whether one is living an isolated life or one of eremitical solitude and the individual might not even know the difference. I also wondered if countering stereotypes of hermits is part of this same need for canonical standing or Church approval. Is this the reason the Church requires the hermit to jump through so many "hoops" to be professed canonically? I think you have written about this some. Lastly, I wondered if your own distinction between isolation and solitude as a "unique form of community" is rooted in your own experience of isolation or of growing to maturity in eremitical solitude? I don't think you have said much about this.]]

Thanks for your questions. They are excellent and it is very cool to hear you were wondering about this! I think I have written about all of these things except perhaps my own experience with/of isolation; I know I did some writing about the importance of canonical standing in On Hermit Ministry and the Call to Become God's Own Prayer and there may be another recent article that did the same. You might check under the label "solitude vs isolation" to see some of the ways I have approached this topic, especially as the place of the Church's discernment is revealed; the same is true of the label "eremitism as ecclesial" (or variations of this). One clarification, I do think canonical standing is important for hermits who live their vocations in the name of the Church, and I believe that strictly speaking, eremitical life is a gift of God to the Church and World which needs to be governed and supervised --- not always easy with such a prophetic vocation, but necessary nonetheless. At the same time I believe that many more than these relative few (consecrated/canonical hermits) are called instead to be lay hermits and to live eremitical life with the aid of spiritual directors and the support of their parishes; I also believe that the Church and world can and should benefit significantly from these lay eremitical lives --- no less than they do from the lives of consecrated hermits.

Difficulties in Discerning the Difference between Isolated Persons and Hermits:

That said, I do agree that there can be a significant difficulty in discerning the difference between an isolated person and one who has been embraced by and herself embraced eremitical solitude. (Remember that Merton writes poignantly about the necessity of solitude herself opening the door to the one who would be a hermit!) It requires a real knowledge of the person's heart and her commitment to and relationship with Life, Truth, and Love,  not merely a sense of the external silence and physical solitude of the person's life. I also agree that the process of discernment associated with the relatively long journey toward eremitical profession and consecration (always public or canonical in nature!) is a central way the Church lays bare and resolves this difficult question on a case-by-case basis. But the general difficulty remains and is evident even in newsletters, etc., which are meant to support and nurture eremitical vocations per se. One of the reasons I am not particularly enthusiastic about the self-identification so prevalent in forums like that of Raven's Bread (a newsletter for hermits, solitaries, and others who love solitude), for instance. is because just about anyone can call themselves a hermit and never feel a need to draw important distinctions regarding motivation, personal woundedness vs relative wholeness, historical and ecclesial understandings of the vocation, or to attend much to the tradition of eremitical life.

In today's excessively individualistic society everything from  an intolerant or self-indulgent cocooning to agoraphobia and misanthropy can be subsumed under the rubric "eremitism" in order to attempt to validate expressions of selfishness and woundedness while escaping the need for responsibility to Church and world in regard to a vocation which is meant for the edification of others via a unique proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This tendency to re-brand any number of social deficiencies and "disorders" as "eremitism" because solitude is defined only in terms of physical aloneness goes hand in hand with the tendency to rebrand or redefine license as authentic freedom. But eremitical solitude is only partly about physical solitude; at its heart it is about communion -- communion with God, with oneself, and with all others, communion which vividly defines the nature of the human being as a covenantal reality and human freedom as the counterpart of divine sovereignty.

In any case, just because someone says, "I am a hermit" in today's world does not mean they are one --- at least not as the Church understands the term; you are exactly right in pointing to the need for discernment in this. Even more important than the distinction between solitude and isolation in the need for canonical standing is the way in which this distinction is achieved and the reality it witnesses to in the authentic hermit: namely through her experience of the love of God in Christ which heals and transforms isolation into solitude. Because the canonical hermit is very specifically called and commissioned to live a solitude which vividly and consciously proclaims the life and love of God, the mutual discernment of the canonical process is necessary and helpful for all eremitical vocations. This is so because such a vocation results in wholeness, holiness, and a freedom expressed in compassionate self-gift rather than an isolation associated with personal woundedness, lack of freedom, a lack of generosity, and the incapacity for compassion or sacrifice. Distinguishing between these dimensions (solitude vs isolation, healthy withdrawal vs unhealthy withdrawal) in oneself is difficult; they can co-exist, especially in the beginning of an eremitical life when so much is ambiguous and still needs to be sorted out, integrated, or formed.

Fooling Ourselves and Misleading Others: The Importance of Mutual Discernment

Moreover, apart from this, our ability to fool ourselves and justify isolation --- especially by applying a label like "hermit" to validate this, by uncritically comparing ourselves to "hermits" of different centuries with different (and sometimes less valid) or actually unhealthy sensibilities and spiritualities, or (when unhealthy withdrawal or selfish isolation are met with skepticism or concern) by concluding, for instance, that we are simply misunderstood by "the world" which we believe we are somehow superior to spiritually or otherwise --- is simply too easy to do. But in these situations the so-called "hermit" will never witness adequately to the power of the love of God which unites her with all God loves; she will never be able to proclaim the Gospel in the unique way a hermit called to human wholeness and holiness will.

It takes others to assess and assist the hermit in assessing the real nature of her physical solitude, her deep motivations, her understanding of the nature of the vocation itself, the place of her relationship with God in Christ and others, and her own wholeness and holiness, if they are to truly discern the presence of an eremitical vocation. This has always been true in the church but it is much more urgent since canon 603 and the possibility of dioceses accepting hermit candidates without long formation in religious and/or monastic life.  Further, because of the individualism of our society, eremitism looks like many other things today  but at its heart it is generously (sacrificially) countercultural. Thus, because it is lived for others it is not a facile rejection of the world outside the hermitage nor an expression of spiritualities which falsely hypostasize and demonize "the world". (See posts re Thomas Merton's treatment of the notion of "the world" for explanations of this.)  Countering this false and destructive approach to the world around us and other stereotypes and misconceptions is certainly a part of the importance of canonical standing and the sometimes-lengthy discernment those seeking profession require.

After all, how can a church be expected to profess individuals to a genuinely compassionate and generous eremitical life without making sure the distinction between isolation and eremitical solitude is something candidates for profession and consecration have come to understand on the basis of long-experience, prayer, and even struggle to love effectively while embracing the life of a hermit? I sincerely believe the "hoops" we often refer to having candidates jump through are not usually onerous and are completely reasonable as the Church attempts to adequately embrace and celebrate the gift which God has given her in the midst of a world so often marked and marred by individualism and license. This is especially true given the uniqueness of each vocation and the way each candidate serves to educate the Church on the way the Holy Spirit brings individuals to an authentic eremitical vocation.

My Own Experience of the Distinction Between Isolation and Eremitical Solitude:

Your question about my own experience of isolation and growing to maturity in solitude is very perceptive. I insist that solitude is a unique experience of community partly because I have experienced the unhealthiness or destructiveness of isolation (physical, emotional, etc.) and its antithesis in the healing character of solitude,  partly because psychology and theology stress the importance of human relatedness (theology stresses this is our very nature), and partly because my own growth in solitary eremitical life (including the inner work I have undertaken over the past couple of years with my director) have each underscored this in its own complementary way.

Taking all these things together I would say I have been exploring the distinction between isolation and solitude for the whole of my life; I began long before I began doing so in a conscious way by focusing on eremitical solitude as a result of the publication of canon 603 in 1983. A number of factors made this necessary, not least significant childhood experiences of isolation and the effect of medically and surgically intractable epilepsy from the age of @ 19.  Similarly, the really positive influences in my life have underscored the communal nature of solitude along with the solitary pole of all community; that has been especially true with violin and orchestral playing, but also with academic work in Theology, my experience of community in religious life, work with physicians and others, and the gift of friendships, parish relationships, etc.

Without the deep and extensively-rooted sense that solitude represents the redemption of isolation, or the profound experience of being communal at our core, I do not know how I could have made sense of eremitical life or embraced it as a divine vocation. Thomas Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action captured my imagination but it did so because it spoke to and built on my life-experience of isolation vs. solitude. Without the experience of having the whole of my life being called to this particular form of self-gift, or the sense of the significance such a life holds where even many discrete gifts and talents are relinquished in order to witness to the way God alone creates, calls, and completes us as covenant partners in a relationship foundational for authentic human being, I could only have rejected eremitical life as the epitome of an unhealthy and inhuman withdrawal. For a host of reasons through the whole of my life I have been uniquely sensitized to isolation and marked with a hunger for genuine solitude. The inner work I have undertaken as part of spiritual direction is a commitment to being made more and more whole and holy in this kind of deeply relational or communal solitude.

By the way, in my emphasis on the ecclesial nature of this vocation this same dynamic is a defining element. While it is true that I often speak of ecclesial vocations in terms of ecclesial rights, obligations, and stable and governing structures, the communal nature of every such vocation is at the heart of the term "ecclesial". Ecclesial vocations represent vocations summoned forth by God from the "called ones" constituting the ecclesia. We say canonical hermits live eremitical life in the name of the Church and by that we mean such hermits are specifically authorized to live these vocations in the power and as an instance of the presence of the ecclesia. In other words, all such vocations are commissioned by the Church; they are nourished by, embraced on behalf of that community and missioned by and for that same community as well as those outside it; finally they are lived in a way which edifies (builds up) the faith community/ecclesia. While it does happen, it is hard for me to conceive how someone claiming to be called by God to be a canonical hermit could  honestly accept consecration to this ecclesial vocation if she failed to appreciate the communal dimension of her solitude and was committed to an individualistic isolation instead of eremitical solitude.

03 October 2018

The Importance of the Church's Role in Professing and Governing c 603 Hermits

[[Dear Sister, if the Church is so important in establishing the nature of a person's eremitical vocation, and if the commissioning of the hermit is crucial in protecting eremitical life from selfishness, why is it some dioceses refuse to profess anyone at all as diocesan hermits? How should we regard such blanket refusals?]]

This is a great question and one I have not written about for some years. Thank you for bringing it up again. It is clear that I believe the Church's discernment and commissioning of the eremitical vocation is critical for healthy eremitical life and also that I believe healthy eremitical life is critical for the life of the Church. So what happens when a diocese simply refuses to use canon 603 at all? This does happen, probably more frequently than I am personally aware of. It was once the case in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (I am not sure of their position in this regard now), and has been reported in several other dioceses and Archdioceses. Let me say that I understand the difficulties of implementing canon 603, especially in terms of discernment, formation, time frames, diocesan support and justice issues, but also that difficulties notwithstanding, canon 603 is a matter of universal law which recognizes the unquestionable way the Holy Spirit is working in the Church; while dioceses must be careful in their discernment and admission of candidates to profession, it is irresponsible to simply refuse to even undertake suitable discernment or otherwise abdicate the diocese's proper role in mediating and supervising this vocation in today's Church.

God is working in people's lives to call them to solitude. We know this is true because we have persons living as diocesan hermits throughout the world now, most of them in edifying ways. For most of these, canon 603 is not a stopgap vocation but the way God is truly calling them to wholeness and holiness. Others live both more and less credible eremitical lives without benefit of the Church's profession, consecration, and commission (missioning) into the silence of solitude. At the same time it remains true that this vocation belongs to the Church; God has entrusted it to the Church as a unique paradigm of the power of the Gospel, the importance of prayer, the potential of nature and grace combined, and of the prophetic dimension of ecclesial life besides.

It is the Church that is responsible for discerning ecclesial eremitical vocations with the hermit candidate, for entrusting and supervising the vocation especially in terms of the rights and obligations that come with public profession and initiation into the consecrated state --- rights and obligations that are not additional to the vocation (because it is ecclesial) but intrinsic to it, just as she is responsible for mediating the hermit's call and commissioning to embrace stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, and the life of the evangelical counsels, in ways which are both healthy and countercultural.  All of these elements of ecclesial vocations protect the eremitical life from needless eccentricity, individualism, and even selfishness; they are part and parcel of God's redemption of human isolation and transformation of that into what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude."

Just go off into Solitude; That's all you Need:

I used to hear fairly regularly from folks who had approached their dioceses seeking admission to profession and consecration under c 603 that they had been told, "Just go off and live in solitude; that's all you need." But given all I have written about this vocation as an ecclesial vocation, I have to say I believe such advice has very limited utility in cases of lay hermit vocations or as a tactic to temporize initially when evaluating the suitability of a candidate or starting them out (or revisiting the possibility of starting them out) on a process of mutual discernment (some folks approach dioceses without yet having lived even a week in eremitical solitude and are given such instructions before being allowed to return to the diocese to participate in a serious process of discernment). However, it is downright wrong in cases where God is calling someone to serve God and the Gospel in an ecclesial vocation to eremitical solitude, and therefore, who both needs and desires to do so as a Catholic hermit. While the need for careful discernment is critical, it is not necessarily an indictment of the hermit's maturity or spiritual readiness to admit they need to be admitted to canonical standing in the consecrated state of life. Instead it can be a sign of a genuine vocation.

When I wrote and submitted my first Rule I noted that I sought canonical standing because over time I had determined it was impossible for me to live eremitical life without it; while I came to terms with the possibility my diocese might never implement canon 603, I also came to see I needed the freedom to fail in my attempts to live the central elements of the canon, but also to succeed in doing so; I needed a way to assure the motivation to try again day after day to truly be the person God was calling me to be in stricter separation from a world that pulled at me in every way. I needed the protections and permissions afforded by profession under canon 603 including ecclesial guidance, the weight of becoming part of a living tradition of hermit life, and a very real accountability to the Church and those who formally represent her in my life.  In short, I needed the freedom to explore a call to union with God, and to do so in a way which proclaimed a Gospel I had given my life to.

All of this became even more critical given the radical countercultural nature of eremitical life. Embracing such a life, no matter the personal circumstances, could (and mainly would) be seen as abdicating one's own responsibility for a loving life both living and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. In other words, "just going off and living in solitude" without canonical commission would never have been enough for me if I was to live my vocation wholeheartedly over the whole of my adult life. I needed to be sure my life was not an instance of misguided individualism, personal and ministerial failure, or some form of unhealthy selfishness subtly disguised with pious labels; I needed to be confirmed in my own discernment of God's movement in my life and encouraged to feel free to continue discerning this movement every day of my life. And I needed to proclaim that God had redeemed the isolation of a life marked and marred by chronic illness and transformed it into an instance of essential wholeness and paradoxical presence precisely in and through the silence of solitude.

This is a difficult (and not atypical) discernment, I think, requiring time and expert assistance. It was and remains today the Church's obligation to aid and support me and others in this process by virtue of her Divinely granted responsibility for eremitical life --- something I think remains true, though in differing ways, whether or not she decides to profess a person or not.

The problems Dioceses Face in Implementing Canon 603:

There are certainly problems dioceses face in implementing canon 603.  Adequate discernment and formation are demanding requirements which dioceses may not feel able to achieve or assist with. (This is the reason I have posted here about a process of discernment and formation which protects the hermit's freedom, allows a diocese to follow and dialogue with the hermit in a constructive way, and which is not onerous for the diocese or her personnel.) Many dioceses have c 603 hermits today and can refer Vicars and others should assistance in discerning authentic vocations be required. The hugest caveat dioceses should be aware of is the caution that being a lone individual, no matter how pious, is not necessarily the same as being a hermit and that c 603 is meant for eremitical vocations, not simply to profess solitary religious as is the case with the Episcopal church's canon on "solitaries."

Contemplative vocations are relatively rare and misunderstood (or at least not understood or sufficiently esteemed) today; eremitical vocations are even more rare and mainly misunderstood, not only by the faithful generally, but by chanceries as well. In a culture marked and marred by an exaggerated individualism and currents of selfishness it may be tempting to dismiss eremitical vocations as illegitimate instances of the culture in search of legitimization, but this would be a mistake. In relatively rare instances genuine hermits will come along who can and do live a paradoxical call to "stricter separation from the world" and "the silence of solitude" and do so as a direct challenge to the individualism and selfishness of the culture. The Church must be open to discerning and professing these vocations!

Questions of justice remain: what do we do with and for hermits who have lived their vows for years and even decades but may, as they age or become infirm, require financial assistance or help with housing? As it stands now dioceses require waivers of liability and stress the hermit must be self-supporting; but what happens down the line when civic safety-nets no longer work and the only option the hermit has is to live in a nursing facility where silence and solitude, much less the silence OF solitude cannot be found? These are important questions and will need to be dealt with but I don't think they are insoluble, especially if the Church continues to be careful in her discernment and profession of eremitical vocations and willing to work with them on a case by case basis. I think the careful way most (but not all!) dioceses have proceeded in professing the c 603 hermits they have aids in solving these problems. What must not happen (and really has not happened) is to allow the floodgates to open and every solitary person approaching a diocese to petition for profession under c 603 in search of a sinecure to be admitted to profession in a careless and undiscerning way. Similarly, (and this has happened) we must not allow c 603 to be used as a pretense to profess individuals with no real eremitical vocation --- lone individuals who have not and may never embrace a desert spirituality, those who want to start communities (even communities of hermits!), those who work fulltime outside the hermitage in highly social jobs, and those who simply want to be religious without the challenges and gifts of community.

At the same time though, it is equally irresponsible to simply refuse to profess anyone under c 603 as though the Church's post Vatican II decision to honor the eremitical vocation in the revision of the Code of Canon Law did not reflect the movement of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, it is hardly fair to penalize individuals with authentic vocations but who merely happen to live in a diocese that has refused to implement the canon in any case. It may be that Vicars, bishops and others will need to educate themselves on this vocation, but isn't this part of their legal and moral responsibility? Canon 603 provides the means to be admitted to a new and stable state of life, namely, the consecrated eremitical state. It does that not only for the church as a whole, but for a fragile, rare, and significant ecclesial vocation that requires not only everything the hermit can give, but the Church's own wholehearted pastoral care and concern as well. The refusal of dioceses to discern, profess, and supervise or govern c 603 hermits now, a full 35 years after c 603 was first promulgated, represents nothing less than the local Church's abdication of her own role precisely as Church!

17 May 2018

Reprising the Problem of Lay Hermits Who Falsely Claim to be Consecrated (Part 1)

It has been some time since I have written about the problem of lay hermits who misrepresent themselves as consecrated hermits but it is time to reprise the discussion. It is always an issue which serves as something of a flash point for those who believe consecrated hermits are demeaning those living eremitical life in the lay (baptized) state of life and it is not my preference to serve in this way. Moreover I found that in one particular case the lay hermit in question used the distinctions I was careful to articulate in order to make her own fraudulent misrepresentation more credible to those who were not knowledgeable of the critical questions her usage obscured. It's hard to write to educate only to find what one writes is used to make a fraud's misrepresentations more apparently cogent! But the simplicity and relative independence of the lives of canon 603 hermits make them relatively easy to simulate, and their consecration something far too easy to pretend to. Even so, it is important to review the issues involved.

This is so because the situation has come to the attention of CICLSAL (The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life) in Rome because there are reports about hermits who are not consecrated whether or not they have private vows, but who, at best, believe and allow others to believe they are consecrated hermits, or at worst, actively work to mislead others and misrepresent themselves in a way which is frankly fraudulent. These latter, among other things, can be found to call themselves "religious" or "Catholic Hermits", or "consecrated Catholic hermits" and describe themselves as "part of the consecrated life of the Church"; they sometimes focus  others' attention on descriptions of the liturgy during which they were (somehow) allowed to make private vows to give the errant sense these vows were received by the Church, beg money, give the sense the Church leaves them in abject poverty and dire medical circumstances while expecting they live a rigorous life of assiduous prayer, penance, and manual labor, and raise any number of other problematical issues. And so, Rome is looking to find ways to deal with the concerns of consecrated hermits, pastors, and bishops --- as well as confused faithful more generally who have been snookered by such hermits and non-hermits --- and is beginning to try to deal with the problem of lay hermits (or non-hermits!) who misrepresent themselves as consecrated hermits whether because they are simply ignorant of the Church's theology of consecrated life or because their fraud is more actively pursued by taking advantage of the theological ignorance of others.

What is really at issue?

So what is really at issue in all of this? We can certainly agree with CICLSAL  that the theology of consecrated life is at stake; from my perspective this means it is our sensitivity to the specifically public and ecclesial nature of consecrated eremitical lives and our recognition of the charismatic and prophetic natures of these vocations which is most at risk. While every vocation is a gift of God to the Church and world, not every vocation is an ecclesial one; not every vocation is discerned by both Church and individual or supervised specifically by the Church because it represents a public instance of the Church's holiness and call to holiness. Not every vocation is a public vocation with public profession (e.g., public vows or propositum), public rights, obligations, and commensurate expectations by the whole People of God (and world, for that matter). But the vocation to c 603 eremitical life is all of these things and more. We, whether consecrated hermits, pastors, bishops, or canonists, treat it with the regard appropriate to it as the specific gift of God it is. At the same time neither can we obscure, misrepresent, or allow to be obscured and misrepresented any dimension of this ecclesial gift or the paradoxical way it proclaims the Kingdom of God and Gospel of Jesus Christ. To do so is to betray the gifts of God with which we have been entrusted and, to some extent, to dishonor their giver as well.

The Nuts and Bolts of the Misunderstandings Involved:

Willful fraud aside for the moment there are some significant misunderstandings driving the confusions regarding who and what are consecrated hermits. Here is where the theology of consecrated life is central as issue. It seems to me four things contribute most significantly to these misunderstandings. 1) The casual use of the term  "consecrate" for an individual and ecclesially unmediated act of dedication to God, something which occurs across the entire spectrum of the Church; 2) a misreading of pars 920-921 of the CCC (the Catechism of the Catholic Church)  in conjunction with the heading of the section containing these paragraphs, 3) the failure to distinguish between the consecration of baptism and that additional ecclesially mediated act by which one enters a different (i.e., consecrated) state of life (this is the failure to distinguish between the lay and consecrated states of life) and 4) a failure to distinguish between an act of profession which is always public and the making of private vows.

1) The casual use of the term "consecrate" for any act of personal dedication, especially for an ecclesially unmediated act of self-dedication is problematical.  Vatican II, for instance, though very clear about the importance of baptismal consecration and the lay vocation, was, at the same time, very careful to distinguish between the action of God (consecratio) and the human counterpart of this action (dedicatio). Consecration is the setting  of something apart as holy or for the sake of holiness and this is, properly speaking, the action of God alone. Unfortunately, we are used today to speaking of consecrating ourselves in one way and another but this is simply inappropriate and misleading. It is also inaccurate to say that Religious are consecrated by the making of vows. When individuals enter the consecrated state of life they will use vows, other forms of sacred bonds, or the propositum associated with the consecration of virgins (c. 604) to express their own dedication but this is part of the Church's mediation of God's own consecration. A corresponding solemn act of consecration (during final or solemn vows or the consecration of virgins) completes an individual's initiation into the consecrated state of life.

We refer to being consecrated in the making of vows because in this instance the dedication of vows is a synedoche where the part stands for the whole (like "head" might stand for the whole person). We use the term consecration in a similar way in relation to the part, i.e., "making vows" only in this case the whole stands for a part. At the same time, consecrated life per se is a state of life and therefore is marked by particular forms of structure and stability. For the hermit this stability is marked by a Rule of Life, profession of the Evangelical counsels, legitimate superiors and/or the supervision by Church authority (which can include the service role of delegates). All of these dimensions and more besides are part of what it means to speak of this as a state of life and beyond that, as a stable state of life which is a gift of God to the Church and world.

2) Misreading paragraphs 920-921 of the Catechism: I don't know how often this misreading of the Catechism occurs (the English version is ambiguous at best), but I do know of one case in particular where a lay hermit builds her entire case of supposedly being in the consecrated state of life on paragraphs 920-921 of the CCC.  I have also received questions about this. The section is headed, "The Consecrated Life of the Church". The paragraphs noted refer to eremitical life and one crucial phrase says that one need not always make vows publicly. What is intended may be an obscure reference to the private vows some lay hermits make, but in such a case the general heading is misleading. Alternately, the CCC may have meant to refer to the "other sacred bonds" besides vows c 603 hermits are allowed to use for their public profession, but if so, the reference is, once again, awkward at best. The question of using private vows for entering the consecrated state of life can only be resolved by referring to the Church's larger theology of the consecrated state which is ALWAYS entered through public profession (c 604 uses a "propositum" rather than vows and c 603 can, as already noted, used sacred bonds other than vows but these are still acts of profession, and thus too, public ecclesial acts). While contextualizing the text in this way is critical, clarification of the meaning of the CCC text, however, would be very helpful in combating misunderstandings and outright fraudulent representations by some lay hermits.

[Addendum: I wrote a post on the Latin original of this section of the CCC on July 29, 2016. It is very clear that profession is ALWAYS public; the English version of the text has interjected the phrase "while not" before always in an awkward attempt to point to the fact that vows are not always necessarily used for this PUBLIC profession. This is what the Church must make clear to pastors, bishops and candidates for c 603 life. Sorry I was not clear myself in this regard in the post at hand.]

A variation here which gives priority to the CCC text, even in interpreting c 603, includes the notion that c 603 is an option or "proviso" which postdates this section of the Catechism and which may or may not be used by the solitary consecrated hermit. Of course this misrepresentation neglects the fact that c. 603 was promulgated long before the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Canon 603  is not merely a "proviso" or option added to that of CCC; it is the way the Church establishes the vocation of the consecrated solitary hermit "in law", that is, officially in the life of the Church. On the other hand, the text of the CCC is descriptive, not prescriptive and cannot be given the kind of priority or weight some lay hermits are giving it in order to diminish the importance of  the Code of Canon Law and c 603.

3) Failing to distinguish between baptismal consecration and the consecration by which one enters the consecrated state of life. It used to be common knowledge that those entering the consecrated state of life did so through a second and ecclesially mediated act of consecration which was akin to a second baptism. The notion of baptismal consecration was not widely applied; the terminology was not commonly used. Moreover, one was understood to definitively enter the "religious state" with perpetual or solemn profession. Other forms of consecrated life did not exist so there was no reason to confuse initiation into the religious state with Sacramental initiation into the Body of Christ. With Vatican II and the fresh esteem given to the lay state of life, the idea of baptismal consecration was revitalized and given wider currency in the Church as a whole. Similarly, besides the religious state the Church gave greater recognition to other forms of consecrated life (hermits, virgins, societies of apostolic life). The term "consecration" was applied to each of these and the distinction between baptismal consecration (initiation into the lay state of life) and initiation into the consecrated state was blurred and sometimes lost sight of altogether. However, the Church's theology of the consecrated state has not changed and it remains important to distinguish between this and the lay state of life (the vocational rather than the hierarchical sense of lay life) in order to honor either of these appropriately.

4) Profession versus private vows: While it is common for folks to use the verb profess or the noun profession for any act of making vows, whether public or private, this is a mistake. Profession refers to an act larger than simply the making of vows which initiates one into another state of life. Profession is therefore used to distinguish the making of public vows from the making of private vows. Private vows do not initiate a person into another state of life; public profession does. The noun profession thus never refers to the making of private vows.

A related misusage stems from the failure to understand what the Church means by the terms private and public in referring to vows.  Because making vows occurs in a way where people know about them, this does not make the vows public. For vows to be public means they are associated with the assumption of public rights and obligations; it means the Church mediates these vows in a way which allows the entire Church to have certain expectations of the one who is publicly professed.  Private vows mark an entirely private commitment which change nothing about a person's public rights and obligations within the Church. They are not insignificant but neither are they akin to public profession by which the Church entrusts one with public rights and obligations or signal to the church and world that the Holy Spirit is working within them in this specific way. If a lay person makes private vows they remain a lay person in the vocational sense as well as the hierarchical sense; they do not enter the consecrated state of life.

A final misusage is the application of the term "Catholic" as in "Catholic Hermit" by those who are not consecrated. This term does not merely mean one is Catholic AND a hermit. Instead it means that one lives the eremitical life in the name of the Church. Canon law is very clear that the term Catholic cannot be applied to a thing, person, or enterprise without appropriate authorization. This is true of religious institutes, TV stations, theologians, and many other things besides; one cannot append the name Catholic to the thing without the permission of the local ordinary. Catholic hermits are representatives of what the Church recognizes, governs, and supervises as eremitical life. (Catholic laity are given the right to call themselves Catholic by virtue of their baptism. To become a Catholic hermit  however, one must be consecrated and thus given permission to style themselves in this way.)

Summary and call for Comments:

At this point I am merely reprising major points of misunderstanding. There are still questions to look at but I would very much like to hear from folks who have questions and thoughts about the problem. I would also like to hear from people who have run across lay hermits who claim to be consecrated and who can describe their experience. Consecrated solitary Hermits form a miniscule part of the consecrated life of the Church but the presence of fraudulent hermits falsely claiming to be consecrated can lead to dioceses failing to deal adequately with genuine instances of the eremitical call. It can lead to a cynicism and suspicion which should not exist about this vocation --- from my perspective, that is. Please let me hear your own perspective on all of this.