"Bishop-less" confirmations becoming more common?

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Is it just my Diocese, or are “Bishop-less” confirmations becoming more the norm than the exception everywhere?
 
I was confirmed this past Easter. About a week before, all of the people participating in the RCIA from around the whole state gathered at the Cathedral here in Little Rock. The Bishop was there and we were all called up, we all shook his hand, etc. Towards the end he signed all of our RCIA books (our names were in them).

Was he there for our actual confimation? No, but how could he be when the sacrament was happening in several different churches all at once?
 
Our priest confirms our RCIA people during the Easter Vigil. . Otherwise, our Bishop does it throughout the year around the diocese.
 
I don’t know how he does it, but our bishop travels thousands of miles each year to confirm the faithful in our diocese, which is bigger than some states. He knows this is the only opportunity that the people have to see their bishop and he takes the time to greet everyone that wants to have a word with him. We pray that his health will hold up and he can continue to do this.
 
In my diocese the bishop along with his two auxillary bishops go around to every parish and do confirmations during the Easter season. In the Eastern Churches, however, the norm is that the priest does “confirmation” (we call it chrismation) at the same time as baptism and then follow it with first communion. This is what the early Church did, and what the Latin Church does with RCIA.

Deacon Tony, if you are in the San Bernardino diocese I see you are getting a new auxilliary – how wonderful. Bishop O’Neill had been an associate pastor in my parish many, many years ago and his death was a serious loss.

Deacon Ed
 
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Lorrie:
Was he there for our actual confimation? No, but how could he be when the sacrament was happening in several different churches all at once? I was not, of course, speaking of RCIA confirmations, but rather “normal” confirmations.
 
I think in many cases “Bishopless” Confirmation can be attributed to one of those unforseen consequences in Life. In this case, the desire to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation primarily in the Easter Season makes the logistics very trying. However, one point I wish to stress. In the Sacrament of Confirmation as in all Sacraments (Matrimony is a special case for another thread) it is always Christ who is acting through the Bishop or Priest.
 
Deacon Ed:
In my diocese the bishop along with his two auxillary bishops go around to every parish and do confirmations during the Easter season. In the Eastern Churches, however, the norm is that the priest does “confirmation” (we call it chrismation) at the same time as baptism and then follow it with first communion. This is what the early Church did, and what the Latin Church does with RCIA.

Deacon Tony, if you are in the San Bernardino diocese I see you are getting a new auxilliary – how wonderful. Bishop O’Neill had been an associate pastor in my parish many, many years ago and his death was a serious loss.

Deacon Ed
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Deacon Ed, My diocese is not San Bernardino. Sorry, I never met Bishop O’Neill. I serve in the Diocese of Fresno. Our Director of the Diaconate is named, Deacon Ed.
 
1313 In the Latin Rite, the ordinary minister of Confirmation is the bishop.130 Although the bishop may for grave reasons concede to priests the faculty of administering Confirmation,131 it is appropriate from the very meaning of the sacrament that he should confer it himself, mindful that the celebration of Confirmation has been temporally separated from Baptism for this reason. Bishops are the successors of the apostles. They have received the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders. the administration of this sacrament by them demonstrates clearly that its effect is to unite those who receive it more closely to the Church, to her apostolic origins, and to her mission of bearing witness to Christ.
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1314 If a Christian is in danger of death, any priest should give him Confirmation.132 Indeed the Church desires that none of her children, even the youngest, should depart this world without having been perfected by the Holy Spirit with the gift of Christ’s fullness. -CCC
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The Bishop in our diocese dosen’t usually, but he has really wanted to do them in our parish over the past three years - it’s one of the biggest parishes - so we changed the date of the conformation in order for the bishop to make it.
 
viktor aleksndr:
1313 In the Latin Rite, the ordinary minister of Confirmation is the bishop.130
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Although the bishop may for grave reasons concede to priests the faculty of administering Confirmation,131 it is appropriate from the very meaning of the sacrament that he should confer it himself, mindful that the celebration of Confirmation has been temporally separated from Baptism for this reason. Bishops are the successors of the apostles. They have received the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders. the administration of this sacrament by them demonstrates clearly that its effect is to unite those who receive it more closely to the Church, to her apostolic origins, and to her mission of bearing witness to Christ.

1314 If a Christian is in danger of death, any priest should give him Confirmation.132 Indeed the Church desires that none of her children, even the youngest, should depart this world without having been perfected by the Holy Spirit with the gift of Christ’s fullness. -CCC
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Well it appears that these paragraphs are a bit at odds with what the Code of Canon Law states.
Can. 530 The functions especially entrusted to the parish priest are as follows:

2° the administration of the sacrament of confirmation to those in danger of death, in accordance with can. 883, n. 3;

Can. 882 The ordinary minister of confirmation is a Bishop. A priest can also validly confer this sacrament if he has the faculty to do so, either from the general law or by way of a special grant from the competent authority.

Can. 883 The following have, by law, the faculty to administer confirmation:

1° within the confines of their jurisdiction, those who in law are equivalent to a diocesan Bishop;

2° in respect of the person to be confirmed, the priest who by virtue of his office or by mandate of the diocesan Bishop baptises an adult or admits a baptised adult into full communion with the catholic Church;

3° in respect of those in danger of death, the parish priest or indeed any priest.

Can. 884 §1 The diocesan Bishop is himself to administer confirmation or to ensure that it is administered by another Bishop. If necessity so requires, he may grant to one or several specified priests the faculty to administer this sacrament.

§2 For a grave reason the Bishop, or the priest who by law or by special grant of the competent authority has the faculty to confirm, may in individual cases invite other priests to join with him in administering the sacrament.
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thanks for your posting the canon law. It is much complete coz that part of the CCC must be taken from the Canon Law. 🙂
 
Deacon Tony560:
Deacon Ed, My diocese is not San Bernardino. Sorry, I never met Bishop O’Neill. I serve in the Diocese of Fresno. Our Director of the Diaconate is named, Deacon Ed.
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Deacon Tony,

Ah, yes, Bishop John – I was at his episcopal ordination as he was an auxilliary bishop here in Orange before he went to Santa Rosa and then on to Fresno.

For many years I used to go to St. Anne’s in Ridgecrest in January and preached. The new pastor has no need for me, however, so that is a thing of the past.

Deacon Ed
 
Here in fly-over country, the parish is told a tentative date as to when the bishop (or an auxillary) will be administering Confirmation at said parish. Unless there is a good reason, the parish rounds up the eighth graders, and sometimes the seventh graders, who have been prepared but not yet confirmed, along with high schoolers and any adult who has been baptized Catholic but somehow missed Confirmation (and those are prepared, too). There is a good deal of parish complex cleaning and cake baking. On the date in question, the bishop shows up and confirms them all. Then, there’s cake and coffee in the parish center.

The exception is RCIA catechumates and on Easter Vigil.
 
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