My 8 yr old doing 1st communion and confirmation on same day

[1ke]

Thank you. So this is something that is being done within a diocese? I mean by that, it hasn’t been mandated by the US Bishops or the Pope?

Correct. It is the Bishop’s decision.

 

[Phemie]

Thank you. So this is something that is being done within a diocese? I mean by that, it hasn’t been mandated by the US Bishops or the Pope?

No, not mandated. Canon Law says that in normal circumstances it is to be celebrated at the age of reason but allows Bishops’ Conferences to decide another age. The USCCB allows Confirmation between the age of reason and 18 and each bishop decides for his own diocese.

Again it should be noted that as far as the Catechism and Canon Law are concerned, Confirmation is the second sacrament of initiation and leads to Communion, not the other way around.

 

[tradcathconvert]

In my diocese the children are confirmed and make their first holy communion on the same day. This happens for both the Ordinary and Extraordinary forms. About the only difference is that in the Ordinary form Confirmation takes places during Mass.
In the Extraordinary form, the rite of Confirmation (if that is the proper terminology) takes place before Mass. The last time it was held where I attend the EF, the children were in the procession before Confirmation. When the service was over, the servers and clergy processed back to the sacristy. The clergy were the bishop, one of his assistants, our chaplain, and the rector of the church which hosts our Mass. While the clergy changed any vestments they needed to, the servers made sure everything was ready for Mass. Then Mass took place as usual, with a few changes due to the presence of the bishop. Our chaplain said the Mass, and the children received their first holy communion from the bishop. At the end of Mass, the children processed out with the altar boys and clergy. While I cannot confirm this as a fact, my guess is that in the current rite the bishop also has the children in the procession and recessional.

 

[arkwright]

About 30 years ago our bishop wanted the Sacraments of Initiation to be restored to their traditional order within the diocese , i.e. Baptism , Confirmation and the Eucharist .

There was widespread consultation and discussion throughout the diocese .

When the bishop finalised his judgement about what had been said he submitted his wishes to Rome and approval was given .

The result is that the children are baptised as normal , as infants . They are confirmed by the priest about the age of seven in their own parish churches on the Feast of Pentecost . They receive their first Holy Communion at Easter the following year .

Referring to my quote above .

Our bishop put his request to the Holy See , and got a positive response .

All the decisions quoted in my above post were carried out with the full consent of Rome .

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I know that the bishop is the ordinary minister of this sacrament but at Easter the Parish Priests have permission to confirm the new converts after reception into the Church or baptism.
I’m just wondering if the bishops will go out to the parishes to confirm the children. I live in a large diocese and most first Communions occur in June. I suppose they would have to be staggered throughout the summer or even year. A good idea would be for all of the children to go to the Cathedral together to be confirmed by the Bishop, receive their first Holy Communion and have a celebration Mass in the parish on the following Sunday.

Depending on the size of the diocese the bishop may have to spread out confirmations over several months no matter what age the confirmations take place. In our diocese, confirmations are staggered and we often have the Archbishop for the military or another visiting/retired bishop scheduled for some of the confirmations. We have almost 200 youth being confirmed in just our parish so we have 4 (maybe 6?) confirmation Masses scheduled.

 

[Hesychios]

In many places, Confirmation is explained as , “Confirming your faith” or “Choosing for yourself to be Catholic”. Neither is accurate.

I’ve heard the argument that if we Confirm kids in 2nd grade, we’ll never get them back to Religious Ed.

What’s being done now isn’t showing great results, why not try the old fashioned way?

This is a perfect explanation of why doing the Initiatory sacraments later is so wrong.

In the early church ALL THREE sacraments were done on the day of reception into the church, so babies got confirmed when they were still ‘wet’ from the baptism.

Why is this preferable? Because it removes the sacrament from being the ‘goal’ of catechesis. The actual goal is to complete the program, the goal is to continue to learn about one’s faith throughout life. The way it is done now, the sacrament has become for many (far too many) the obstruction to catechesis … once the sacrament has been obtained the young people often abandon the studies, and they remain children in their religious formation. Parents, typically ignorant of the problem, do not push their young charges any further.

Bring back infant confirmation and infant communion, and this problem will resolve itself. It works.