Confirmation record

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Hoosier-Daddy said:
I too have no record of my confirmation. When I got married they looked for one. I was confirmed outside of the normal rcia process in college. I’m interested in the answer here.
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If you were at college and it was done there, your records might be at a parish associated with the college.

I attended a “Francophone Catholic Community” in the last town where we lived. We were a recognized part of the diocese but unless you asked you might not have known that any sacraments conferred in the Community were recorded at the English parish down the street. So if it wasn’t done and my 2 oldest kids’ Confirmation wasn’t sent to my home parish to be noted in the Baptismal records, I know which parish I have to contact to have that rectified. I meant to check that last time I was home but with parish realignment it was hard to figure out where the registers were now kept and I was only there for a few days. Something to look into next summer.

But record keeping varies.

When I was parish secretary I was pretty much dumped in there and told “OK, issue certificates of baptism.” It was only in reading these forums that I came to know that notations of Confirmation and Marriage were required but that’s when I discovered that only if those sacraments had been celebrated in another parish were they recorded in the Baptismal Register.

Every time I had to issue a certificate for a bride or groom I had to scour all the marriage and confirmation registers we had to find if a) they’d been confirmed, or b) there was a previous marriage, and perhaps an annulment.
 
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Interesting. Nope there are no records at that diocese either. It was a diocesan college so that was my first thought.
 
cb934586 said:
Hello, I am unable to locate my confirmation records. I contacted the church where I thought it was done and they said they can’t find it. No one remembers the ceremony to provide a testimony. I vaguely remember it. The name I picked was Elizabeth. I would like to join a religious order but they require this record
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In an ideal world, where everything works the way it’s supposed to, the parish where you were confirmed will have sent notification of this fact to the parish of your baptism where it will have been duly noted in the baptism register. That said, I’m yet to discover where this ideal world might be because certainly I don’t seem to be living in it!

However, what I’ve found in the past is that the parish people think they were baptised/confirmed in isn’t the one they were actually baptised/confirmed in! This is where computerised records come in handy. The records office at the diocese should be able to do a search for your name and the approximate year you were confirmed.

If this fails, then you can provide testimony yourself as to the fact of confirmation (you don’t need to remember the precise details although the celebrant - presumably the bishop - would help) and this may be enough for what the order requires. If all else fails then a conditional confirmation is possible as a last resort and this can be done by any priest with a delegation of authority from the bishop).
 
You could contact the diocese and ask them where the records would have likely been kept in your case.

As has been said, though, all Confirmations should get reported back to the parish you were baptized at. So in an ideal world, contacting the parish you were baptized at should give you the record for Baptism, Confirmation and Marriage.

It doesn’t always work out that way, though. I know when I went to get married, the parish I was baptized at (which we moved away from when I was just a month old) did not have record of my Confirmation from the parish I grew up at. So I had to get that record separately. It happens.
 
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Perhaps I’m unclear. There is no record. I’ve dealt with this for 20 years… it isn’t at my current parish, not at the college, not in the diocese I was confirmed in, not anywhere period .
 
I suggest you contact the order you want to join. Unfortunately, Church administration is not perfect. You cannot be their first aspirant who has had trouble finding sacramental records. Ask them how to proceed as I am sure they will have experience in this area.
 
Is your sponsor still alive? He/she can testify that you were confirmed. That should be sufficient.
 
I’m guessing that there was some sort of “conditional confirmation” prior to your Catholic wedding?
 
No. Why would there be? I was confirmed at 20. Married at 25. I remembered the confirmation and was my wife’s sponsor in rcia before our wedding. I dont know what kind of awesomely organized diocese y’all live in but that has not my experience in the four I’ve lived in.
 
Canon law:

Can. 1065 §1. Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation are to receive it before they are admitted to marriage if it can be done without grave inconvenience.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3W.HTM

ETA

Also

Can. 893 §1. To perform the function of sponsor, a person must fulfill the conditions mentioned in ⇒ can. 874.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P34.HTM

Can. 874 §1. To be permitted to take on the function of sponsor a person must:

3/ be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist and who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on;

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P2Y.HTM#4.1.0.1.4.0.874
 
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Yes. I recieved the sacrament before I was married… one of us is not understanding the other…
 
If you do not have records of your Confirmation, I would assume that prior to your wedding and/or standing as sponsor there would have been some sort of conditional sacrament. Maybe I have you confused with someone else?
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
No. Why would there be? I was confirmed at 20. Married at 25. I remembered the confirmation and was my wife’s sponsor in rcia before our wedding. I dont know what kind of awesomely organized diocese y’all live in but that has not my experience in the four I’ve lived in.
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No surprises there - I have a baptism register next to me going back thirty years with next to nothing recorded in the comments about confirmation or marriage! The advantage with confirmation (in the western Church at least) is that the confirmand is typically old enough to remember it, making things a lot easier when it comes to testimony. Photos (and video) are also helpful. When it comes to marriage, baptism is essential - confirmation not as much. Since you’re already married, I’m guessing you don’t really have much need of a formal record or certificate.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Canon law:

Can. 1065 §1. Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation are to receive it before they are admitted to marriage if it can be done without grave inconvenience.
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“Grave inconvenience” is in the eyes of the beholder. I have never known anyone who wasn’t confirmed have Confirmation conferred before their marriage in the 11 years I worked at the parish.
 
Phemie said:
“Grave inconvenience” is in the eyes of the beholder. I have never known anyone who wasn’t confirmed have Confirmation conferred before their marriage in the 11 years I worked at the parish.
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In practice, if I had a Catholic requesting marriage who wasn’t confirmed I’d raise it with them but if they didn’t want to be confirmed, I can’t refuse to celebrate their wedding on that basis alone so I’d just leave it be. Granted, this can be an opportunity for evangelisation and for helping someone who strayed from the faith to return, however they have to be ready in order for that to happen; it’s not something that can be forced.
 
And in the 10 years I have worked for the parish, I have never seen an instance where Confirmation was not done as part of the pre-marriage preparation 🙂 Sometimes I think that different Bishops’ Conferences set different things as important.
 
The whole point is that confirmation WAS done, there is just no paperwork for it…
 
Though I’ve often been an advocate of checking to see if your sacraments are valid. We do that with baptism and such but oddly enough there is no way to investigate your marriage without a civil divorce. It’s so odd to me the Church requires a legal document from a government to investigate it’s own sacrament!
 
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