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Merseyside mystery recluse

Echo webnews site of Liverpool, England features a short item titled “Missing German diplomat lived on Merseyside beach for 30 years.” Byline: “Frederick Kreuger appeared in Wallasey in the 1870s and became a beloved local figure despite avoiding human contact.” Here is a classic recluse story. Kreuger appears without a history, avoids social sontact,takes frequnt walks, lives in several beach-front huts which, when opened after his pasing, are “filled with books and papers, including Mozart and Wagner scores, classical volumes written in Ancient Greek and Latin, and works written by Kreuger himself.”

URL: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/missing-german-diplomat-lived-merseyside-33091041

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Salatiel Alarcón, Peruvian hermit

Voces, a Peruvian news and media web site, offers an article titled “El ermitaño del Chumbakihui,” about Salatiel Alarcón, whio decided to abandon urban life for a Amazonian rainforest region where he undertook a conservation project at the confluence of several rivers: Two Rivers Agrotourism Farm on twenty hectares. Alarcón is accompanied by his two teenage sons.

URL: https://diariovoces.com.pe/el-ermitano-del-chumbakihui/

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Pope meets hermits

Vatican News presents an article titled “Pope Leo meets with group of Italian hermits in Rome for Jubilee.” From the article: “Pope Leo meets with a group of hermits in Rome for the Jubilee of Consecrated Life and encourages them to continue living out their vocation, helping the Church and all the faithful rediscover the importance of intimacy with God.”

URL: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-10/pope-leo-meets-with-group-of-italian-hermits-in-rome-for-jubilee.html

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Solitude resources

from Catholic Outlook (Australia) offers the reflective essay “The Virtues of Solitude,” by Lynn Casteel Harper, first published in Commonweal. Article byline: “To cure the loneliness epidemic, we need to learn how to be alone.” URL: https://catholicoutlook.org/the-virtues-of-solitude/

from WHY, Philadelphia public radio ,podcast (50 min.). “The joy of being alone: why we all need solitude,” by psychologist Robert Coplan, author of “The Joy of Solitude,” on the restorative power of being alone. URL: https://whyy.org/episodes/the-joy-of-being-alone-why-we-all-need-solitude/

from Psychiatric Times: “Should Solitude Be a Psychiatric Value?” URL: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/should-solitude-be-a-psychiatric-value

from Psychology Tiday: “When to Prioritize Solitude—and When to Participate.”
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/breaking-good/202512/when-to-prioritize-solitude-and-when-to-participate

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Silence and Its Thoughts – book

A review article in the Vatican’s official publication L’Osservatore Romano addresses a recent book Il silenzio e i suoi pensieri. L’esperienza dell’eremo nel nostro tempo [Silence and Its Thoughts. The Experience of the Hermitage in Our Time], edited by G. Giambalvo Dal Ben.

The Engllsh-language review is titled: “Being alone for others: hermitism today.”

From the article: “It is not, in fact, being alone in a place that makes a hermit but being in the presence of the Lord in the name of all those who do not fit in, do not know or do not want to, and on their behalf,”

“Hermitage is an experience closely linked to monasticism, which is why I was interested in reading this periodic survey that scholars, journalists, and interested individuals have attempted regarding this vocation. It is the result of meetings organized by the Christian Meditation Center of Florence, and it is not ‘a book about hermits, but a book written by hermits, based on the conviction that to “investigate the meaning of solitary life today;’ it is more useful to listen to the living testimony of individuals who have made this choice.”