Not arguing at all - I stand humbly corrected now that you’ve shown me this Canon :bowdown2:
I apologize for the tone of my last post.Not arguing at all - I stand humbly corrected now that you’ve shown me this Canon :bowdown2:
Fact is you quoted Canon 777 before, which says nothing whatever about adults and only discusses children. I had thought the order was to be the same with adults otherwise you wouldn’t quote that particular canon.
NOW you’ve done a good job of convincing me
I apologise for my part in the interruption to regularly scheduled programming, which I trust 99% of y’all would’ve ignored long ago, and heartily agree with sister puzzleannie here. :yup:
The OP has not provided any evidence that he recieved an education in the Catholic faith. That is key in this situation. We also don’t know why he presented himself for confession and why the priest did not instruct him as to his next step. Was he instructed to do this by a priest or a lay person trying to be helpful? In order to recieve communion there should be some evidence of the understanding of what the Eucharist is and the responsibility it entails to be a member of the body of Christ. This must be verbally discussed. For time and convenience this is usually accomplished through adult classes although some priests will handle this one on one but that is happening more rarely.
While we do not require Confirmation before first Holy Communion, there very well may be particular law regarding requirements for admission to Holy Communion, such as an examination by the pastor or his delegate to determine sufficient awareness to receive (or, for instance, First Communion must, I believe, be received in the context of Mass). The problem we run into is that no one addresses the situation of adult Catholics who have never received Holy Communion, which is our particular situation addressed here. To draw on our experience of children, though, would anyone advocate simply presenting your seven-year-old for Communion without ever consulting the pastor whatsoever, arguing “He’s a Catholic and meets the requirements, he’ll make his First Communion whenever he pleases” or would we, on the other hand, recommend consulting the pastor before taking such action? Yes, the cases are somewhat different, but there’s enough similarity to consider it a parallel place that could enlighten our reasoning.
How is knowledge key to anything? What am I missing here? It’s the sacraments that do things, not knowledge. Why can a child who was baptized as an infant and gets a minimal amount of cathechism training be allowed holy communion without confirmation, but a convert validly baptised elsewhere who fully understands and accepts the faith any different? Why is there a double standard?
To be able to go to confession requires one be Catholic - have been received into the faith. While the baptism may be in another denomination, there will have been some other ceremony - a profession of faith for example - before confession can happen. Not necessarily confirmation, though.
I absolutely agree here on that point, although converts do go to confession days before or the day of their confirmation after the bishop has received them as candidates or in the case of a death bed conversion to the faith. Other than that, a person must be Catholic to receive that sacrament.
You’d be amazed. I no longer am. We had a poster here who just started attending Mass and going to communion and confession because he was told by some well meaning although misinformed Catholics that was all he had to do. Turns out he was baptized in a protestant church. This was not discovered for over a year until he presented himself to the church to ask for the Sacrament of marriage. He was told then he needed to go to RCIA. He was quite upset by this as you can imagine. This is why I will never be surprised by what happens.
