Abbots and Confirmation

[DJJG]

The bishop is the ordinary minister for confirmation, in the latin (Roman) church.

In normal circumstances, a priest must receive faculties from his bishop to confirm, for it to be valid. This is often done in the diocese I am from, due to the fact that we have only two bishops for the eight counties of our diocese (Buffalo, NY).

However, at the Easter Vigil, the pastor have the faculties to confirm any one, of any age, newly coming into the church. Also a priest has faculties to confirm any baptized catholic,of any age,on their death bed - and has a duty to do so (however many priests do not know that they are supposed to).

 

[diggerdomer]

The bishop is the ordinary minister for confirmation, in the latin (Roman) church.

In normal circumstances, a priest must receive faculties from his bishop to confirm, for it to be valid. This is often done in the diocese I am from, due to the fact that we have only two bishops for the eight counties of our diocese (Buffalo, NY).

However, at the Easter Vigil, the pastor have the faculties to confirm any one, of any age, newly coming into the church. Also a priest has faculties to confirm any baptized catholic,of any age,on their death bed - and has a duty to do so (however many priests do not know that they are supposed to).

Thanks. Was this something missing from earlier responses? I wasn’t sure if you were clarifying, correcting, or adding to what’s already been said. Please let us know when you can. it’s been a long thread, I probably missed something.

 

[FrDavid96]

However, at the Easter Vigil, the pastor have the faculties to confirm any one, of any age, newly coming into the church

Mostly. See canon 883.2
When a priest receives or baptizes one who is not an infant (ie over age 7) he may confirm. He cannot confirm an infant.

 

[The_Fool]

Actually, I think the question raised by your query is incredibly significant for our Church.

…

I love your question. “So at what point is a diocese too big?” I would love to see the bishops in our Church spend a Synod wrestling with this question (with lay participation of course).

Vatican II refers to the “local Church” as being the Bishop with the faithful united in the Eucharist…how many dioceses really feel a connection to their Bishop?

I’ll start a separate thread to keep this one somewhat on topic. Maybe we’ll get an answer.

 

[roselily]

It’s a little off topic… okay it’s quite off topic. Maybe I should change the signature. The above are supposed to be the Persian alphabet as I remember it, broken up into chunks so it’s not a long, near continuous line. Someone else mentioned they are the same as in the Arabic alphabet, which doesn’t surprise me, but Arabic does use some characters and sounds that Farsi does not. I can’t help but feel like something is out of order in there, or missing, besides the short vowels. I don’t know where the short ones go anyway. This was more of an exercise to see if I remembered where all the keys were on my keyboard.

In case you were curious, the sign says, “My Farsi is bad.” I apologize for the confusion, but it’s a great conversation starter, no?

Why?
Why did you not call yourself ‘wise’ but ‘the fool’
But perhaps we ought to be humble?

 

[Deacon_Ed]

It’s all right. I was just putting something out I was curious about. The gentleman who said he was an MC for confirmations the abbot did implied knowledge of such occurrences and people with his declaration. Another person said that such occurrences were common place where he was. That answered an unasked question as to whether it was common in the Diocese of Orange in California.

Ultimately, I know we have a shortage of priests, but are we getting a shortage of bishops as well, or is it something else?

During the time I served as an MC for confirmations (about five years ending six years ago) the abbot was asked to do confirmations in seven or eight of the 55 parishes, the rest being spread between the bishop and his auxiliary plus the retired bishop.

Last year the bishop invited Bishop Nicholas of the Melkite Catholic Church to serve confirmations at six or seven parishes. He has also invited a retired bishop from Australia to assist when he was in the area. With the ordination of our new auxiliary the schedule currently has only the bishops doing confirmation. I don’t recall seeing the abbot scheduled for a confirmation in the last two or three years.

I trust that answers your question.

Deacon Ed

 

[The_Fool]

:yup: