Roman Catholics-at what age does your parish administer the sacrament of Confirmation?

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anp1215

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I’ve always found the wide variety of ages at which Confirmation is administered in the Latin Rite to be interesting, so I wanted to get some “statistics.” 🙂

The parish I’m currently attending starts Confirmation classes in the 10th grade. Since classes take 2 years, I’m assuming that means the students are confirmed in the 12th grade (aged 17-18 years).

I know that my father was confirmed at the age of 12 in 1963, so that’s a big difference in age.

Please answer the poll, and feel free to relate what your parish does to the age/time period in which you were confirmed. I’m curious to know if the average age of Confirmation candidates has increased over the years. Thanks!
 
The question really is “at what age does your diocese administer the sacrament of confirmation?” The Bishop is the person who administers the sacrament and he determines when it should be for his diocese and what steps are necessary (or ideal) for preparation.

Of course within that there may be quite a bit of variation. Moves, conversions, illness, and other situations could cause a particular person to be confirmed at a very different age. For example, in my diocese normal confirmation is at the end of 8th grade. No one in my family was confirmed then and we were all confirmed in this diocese. 😛
 
In our parish, the norm for Confirmation is at the end of eighth grade (so 13-14 years old). Before I was Catholic , I remember that friends in high school were confirmed in tenth grade (15-16 years old).
 
Mrs_Sally said:
The question really is “at what age does your diocese administer the sacrament of confirmation?” The Bishop is the person who administers the sacrament and he determines when it should be for his diocese and what steps are necessary (or ideal) for preparation.

Of course within that there may be quite a bit of variation. Moves, conversions, illness, and other situations could cause a particular person to be confirmed at a very different age. For example, in my diocese normal confirmation is at the end of 8th grade. No one in my family was confirmed then and we were all confirmed in this diocese. 😛
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Unfortunately, not every pastor follows the directives of his diocese, so I think my question still stands. An immediate example comes to mind. My archdiocese mandates that the candidate be confirmed in the 10th or 11th grade, but the parish I used to attend confirms in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.

As a correction to my original post, the parish I currently attend confirms in the 10th grade (so they are following the directive). I assumed that Confirmation classes lasted 2 years (as they did in my previous parish) but it appears that they only last about 6 months. So the students begin classes at the beginning of the 10th grade and are confirmed at the end of 10th grade.

Thanks for your feedback!
 
I voted “other” because this is something that varies so greatly in my diocese, that even the 3 parishes that I have been most recently involved with (which are less than 5 miles apart) all do it differently.

At one the kids are in 6th grade (around 10-12 years), at another it is 8th grade (12-14 years) and at another they do “restored order” with Confirmation & First Eucharist at the same time so there are children as young as 7. There are also a couple of parishes that wait until the 10th grade (14-16 years).

In my diocese, 80% of all Confirmations happen at the Cathedral (if your parish is within 50 miles of the Cathedral, you come here, if it’s more, the Bishop goes there), but there is usually more than one parish at any given Confirmation Mass. It can be very awkward when you have a parish that does “restored order” and half the kids are 7-10 years old and the other parish does it in 10th grade, which is why I would to see the diocese adopt some type of “norm” instead of leaving it up to the individual pastor.
 
Oneofthewomen said:
I voted “other” because this is something that varies so greatly in my diocese, that even the 3 parishes that I have been most recently involved with (which are less than 5 miles apart) all do it differently.

At one the kids are in 6th grade (around 10-12 years), at another it is 8th grade (12-14 years) and at another they do “restored order” with Confirmation & First Eucharist at the same time so there are children as young as 7. There are also a couple of parishes that wait until the 10th grade (14-16 years).

In my diocese, 80% of all Confirmations happen at the Cathedral (if your parish is within 50 miles of the Cathedral, you come here, if it’s more, the Bishop goes there), but there is usually more than one parish at any given Confirmation Mass. It can be very awkward when you have a parish that does “restored order” and half the kids are 7-10 years old and the other parish does it in 10th grade, which is why I would to see the diocese adopt some type of “norm” instead of leaving it up to the individual pastor.
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Thanks for the feedback. Interesting. Yes, some sort of norm would be good. That is such a wide variety of ages!
 
I attended an English Boarding school run by Benedictine Monks (Ampleforth Abbey & College) in the Middlesbrough Dioscese. We were all confirmed in Year 10 (15-16 years old)Looking back I feel I wasn’t really ready then, I did it mostly because all my friends were doing it and the school put a lot of pressure on us to be confirmed… The monk in Charge of the Preparation seemed to think we’d pick it all up by Osmosis and we received virtually no substantial Catechesis over a 5 or 6 month period, which didn’t help either :rolleyes: I’m told that the students are now receiving much better Catechesis from a new team of Chaplains, which is great if true 👍

I subsequently spent a school year working in a school in Santiago de Chile where the the students were Confirmed at 18. Personally I think this is much better because all the students were much more mature & all seemed to be doing it by choice rather than because of pressure (though I don’t know what their parents were saying to them at home, in most cases)

Peace & all Good

:blessyou:
 
Our diocese confirms between 6-9th grade. Our parish does it in 8th. I was in 4th grade when I was confirmed in 1964.
 
The bishop has to be allowing this variation. An individual pastor does not have the authority to determine confirmation age, only the bishop does. Now, the bishop may say “between 6th and 8th grades”. He may be giving particular pastors the ability to use “restored order” either at their request or as a “test” for his whole diocese. The bishop is the ordinary minister of confirmation. He usually does delegate preparation, and for the most part delegates the confirmation of adults coming in through RCIA at Easter (but not always), but a baptised Catholic, receiving the sacrament of confirmation in normal circumstances, is confirmed by his Bishop.
Oneofthewomen said:
I voted “other” because this is something that varies so greatly in my diocese, that even the 3 parishes that I have been most recently involved with (which are less than 5 miles apart) all do it differently.

At one the kids are in 6th grade (around 10-12 years), at another it is 8th grade (12-14 years) and at another they do “restored order” with Confirmation & First Eucharist at the same time so there are children as young as 7. There are also a couple of parishes that wait until the 10th grade (14-16 years).

In my diocese, 80% of all Confirmations happen at the Cathedral (if your parish is within 50 miles of the Cathedral, you come here, if it’s more, the Bishop goes there), but there is usually more than one parish at any given Confirmation Mass. It can be very awkward when you have a parish that does “restored order” and half the kids are 7-10 years old and the other parish does it in 10th grade, which is why I would to see the diocese adopt some type of “norm” instead of leaving it up to the individual pastor.
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anp1215 said:
Unfortunately, not every pastor follows the directives of his diocese, so I think my question still stands.
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Or more simply, the Bishop sets an age range instead of a specific age.

For my diocese, it is 8th grade and up. My parish confirms at 8th grade. I imagine some of this has to do with the fact that our parish school is K -8 so they want to do confirmation before they divide out into various other schools.

Personally, if it were up to me, I’d vote for the restored order and confirm at the same time as First Communion. I think it just makes way more sense that way.
 
In our diocese, the Bishop has Confirmation done during their Junior year in high school and that seems to be the case throughout the diocese. I’m actually pretty good with the practice since my girls seem to be on fire with their faith just prior to adulthood and graduating high school.

Since my mother’s culture is Filipino, I was Confirmed when I was age 7 when we went visiting relatives at that time. In that culture, everyone is Catholic so I believe it would have been all right to be confirmed that young since everything in that atmosphere screams Catholicism. You’re definitely not exposed to that kind of climate in the U.S. As a result, IMO, I grew up as a clueless Catholic with a 2nd grade education. I didn’t embrace my faith until much later in my life once challenged by my wife’s non-Catholic faith.

In the US, I don’t believe kids should be confirmed any sooner than 8th grade but I do like the fact that our diocese does it as a junior in high school. If I lived in a predominant Catholic country, moving the age for Confirmation to 8 would be fine IMO.
 
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