Confirmation age in your diocese?

[IrishAm]

Tough call. If the bishop declares Confirmation to be a rite of passage into adulthood in the church, then it makes no sense to confer it before at least 16 years old. You can make a 12-year-old be confirmed; you can’t make a 16±year-old if they really don’t want to do so. (You can, of course, apply effective pressure.) They are adult enough to make that call. They are confirmed and take their place as adults in the faith; no one is letting an 8th grader be a real adult in the church or anywhere else.

If, however, it is not a Catholic rite of passage into adulthood, then doing it early makes perfect sense. The graces are conveyed and sealed. Frankly, there’s a lot to be said for the Eastern Rite’s approach of infant baptism/eucharist/confirmation all at once.

I was told during a debate on this subject that, originally, what was “confirmed” was the validity of the baptism. After baptism, the next time the bishop came to town, he confirmed that those baptized since his last visit had properly and validly been baptized into the Church and did not just get wet at the hands of some rogue priest.

My girls were confirmed as a sophomore in one diocese, an eighth grader in another, and a junior in the third. Go figure. And I do not believe, despite the cynics, that any of the decisions was made to “keep them in CCD.”

 

[dconklin]

Twelve years ago our diocese (Charlotte) moved it to 8th grade. That was my 1st year here and I was the YM at a brand new parish. We had 75 kids in grades 9-12 working together towards their Conformation. It was awesome - and a challenge. Most parishes do it in 8th grade and few do it the fall of 9th grade.

 

[Gearoidin]

In my diocese in Ireland children are usually confirmed around 11 or 12 years old in my diocese in Japan, around 14 years old.
Gearoidin

 

[Elizabeth502]

Ours is ridiculous: 16-17 years of age. Therefore, I insisted that my children get confirmed in the neighboring diocese. World of difference in the programs, not to mention the spirituality and reverence of the jr. high group. I would never have tolerated my children getting confirmed in high school, so mine had theirs as 8th graders. That should be the latest, i.m.o. Somewhere between 6th and 8th grade, when they begin to realize the seriousness of their faith, begin to take responsibility in other ways in their lives, and are conscious of developing an identity, is the ideal time, again i.m.o. (I was a 7th grader myself at confirmation.)

I’m also figuring in comparing results of those families whose children waited until late high school. Horrible programs (80+% social & recreational), and the students I spoke with found little meaning in the programs or the experience. They were at the time more focused on their next years in college, jobs, and adulthood. In terms of child and adolescent development, such decisions are very poor decisions on the part of dioceses and reflect how little they seem to know about childhood development in the later years.