CV NEWS FEED // In an update from Our Sunday Visitor on diocesan hermit Cole Matson’s decision to publicly identify as transgender on Pentecost Sunday, another hermit in California has revealed that she warned Lexington Bishop John Stowe about the consequences of recognizing a transgender hermit nearly two years prior.
Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) reported that Sister Laurel O’Neal, a systematic theologian, Camaldolese Oblate, and hermit in the Diocese of Oakland, California, sent several emails to Bishop Stowe in 2022, expressing her concerns about Matson’s wish to become a hermit.
Sister O’Neal had previously corresponded with Matson in 2019 and 2022. In her first warning to Bishop Stowe, Sister O’Neal said that she had “serious concerns” that approving eremitical life for Matson would be a misuse of Canon 603, which refers to laws governing an eremitical vocation.
“I appreciate that Cole has spent time considering and trying his vocation, but he has not spent any real time living or discerning a vocation to eremitical life, and especially not to solitary eremitical life under c 603,” she wrote to Bishop Stowe, according to OSV.
In August 2022, Sister O’Neal sent a second email to Bishop Stowe, this time warning that recognizing Matson as a hermit would risk “serious scandal and even sacrilege.” She also included Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky, and then-Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who is now a Cardinal, in the email.
“[Matson’s] proposed profession is essentially a dishonest and selfish act without real regard for the fact that vocations to consecrated life/states of perfection belong primarily to the church, not to the individual to whom she mediates such a call,” Sister O’Neal wrote, according to OSV.
“Admitting Cole to profession in a state of perfection with a fundamental act of deception at the heart of said profession calls into question Cole’s capacity to live this profession for the sake of the salvation of others,” she added, warning that introducing Matson as “Brother Christian” would also involve “a public act of deception” upon the faithful.
According to OSV, “Bishop Stowe offered a ‘gracious and brief response’ acknowledging her understanding of Canon 603 and her vocation. Archbishop Fabre deferred to Bishop Stowe in his reply, and the papal nuncio did not respond.”
In May 2024, Bishop Stowe approved Matson’s eremitical vocation and issued a controversial diocesan statement in support of Matson’s public announcement on Pentecost Sunday regarding her transgender status.
In her first email, Sister O’Neal had added that eremitical life is a genuine vocation, not a “fallback” vocation for those who do not have a true call or who use becoming a hermit as a way to deal with complicated situations. Sharing a 2022 letter from Matson with OSV, she pointed out that Matson was indeed viewing eremitical life as a “second-best” vocation.
“I was hesitant to share this with you because I know you write a lot about ‘stopgap’ and ‘fall back’ vocations,” Matson had written in 2022, according to OSV. “To be frank, I feel called to community religious life and still hope to be given brothers, either through formation of a new community or by being able to formally enter the community where I found a home last year.”
Matson later wrote, “I understand if this situation goes against your position on the use of canon 603, but I also hope you’ll understand the complexities of the situation. Both my bishop and I believe that I am called to public profession, and that it is a matter of justice in the Church.”
According to OSV, Matson’s wish to instill “justice in the Church” made it clear to Sister O’Neal that Matson was “speaking about doing justice to transsexuals (et. al.) who cannot, at this point in time, enter religious, consecrated, or ordained life in the Church.”
Sister O’Neal additionally called for Matson to take time to heal from being rejected from the monastery, saying that grief would impede any real vocational discernment.
OSV’s full investigation is available here.
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