Should the Confirmation age be lowered?

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Babochka, it isn’t clear to me they are allowed to set a later date than 16 or 10th grade. The bishops could easily send another to be approved by the Holy See including up to 18. My understanding is the exceptions can’t be the norm - you can’t make above what is approved the norm.
It was interesting when the US bishops first asked for this they left the age blank and it was rejected. I think at that time, there was a push for the new understanding of maturity meaning they are young adults. Now we are several years past and can see the theology doesn’t stand the test, fails. It is also why those who are taught this, have to be high schoolers, can not comprehend when their children are taught the correct meaning. They get fixated on age and won’t let go…And about them being old enough to confirm their own faith. Which is totally false.
For that reason alone I would vote to move it before first communion.
 
Hopey said:
Babochka, it isn’t clear to me they are allowed to set a later date than 16 or 10th grade. The bishops could easily send another to be approved by the Holy See including up to 18. My understanding is the exceptions can’t be the norm - you can’t make above what is approved the norm.
It was interesting when the US bishops first asked for this they left the age blank and it was rejected. I think at that time, there was a push for the new understanding of maturity meaning they are young adults. Now we are several years past and can see the theology doesn’t stand the test, fails. It is also why those who are taught this, have to be high schoolers, can not comprehend when their children are taught the correct meaning. They get fixated on age and won’t let go…And about them being old enough to confirm their own faith. Which is totally false.
For that reason alone I would vote to move it before first communion.
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You’re right, although many 16 year olds are in 11th grade. That’s interesting background information about the request for the exception to the law. I recently read that a group of Bishops in Italy wanted to move the confirmation age to 18 and were denied. I’ll see if I can find the link later. For now, my kids and I are heading to the State Fair.

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I have a feeling they do not send a new petition including up to 18, because it has been brought to the holy sees attention the errors that are being taught by those who hold they must be graduating teens to ‘confirm’ their faith. I could be wrong but Bishop Aquila was urged to speak w his brother bishops after realizing his own errors he held on to. Talking to brother bishops doesn’t mean they will listen tho.
Reformation is slow. Sometimes it takes a new bishop to get some things rooted out.
 
In our diocese, they can not join till they reach the age 16 or junior year. Since the program is 2yrs, many confirmations coincide w graduation. Some graduated before they finished the course. To top it off, my 9 yo has a better understanding, foundation, than many of those deemed prepared. When we bring it to our bishops attention we are told to go wherever the bishop agrees w us! It is sad.
 
I think that first communion should be at 7 and confirmation at 9.
 
I think that this is ridiculous and completely out of step with what the apostles taught us.

Chrismation and Holy Communion should be administered immediately after baptism, no matter the Christian’s age.
 
WetCatechumen said:
I think that this is ridiculous and completely out of step with what the apostles taught us.

Chrismation and Holy Communion should be administered immediately after baptism, no matter the Christian’s age.
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There are many priests who agree with you, including our Pastor. He wasn’t aware that before we were merged with his diocese, which had Confirmation in grade 10, our own diocese had Confirmation before First Communion around age 7.

When the merger happened, the Bishop set the timing for all at any time between grades 6 and 10, depending on the parish’s wishes. That meant that for several years we had no candidates. Then we were pastorless for a year and nothing happened. Only now are we getting ready to prepare a new group of candidates and it looks as though the Pastor will be preparing them himself.
 
Phemie said:
There are many priests who agree with you, including our Pastor. He wasn’t aware that before we were merged with his diocese, which had Confirmation in grade 10, our own diocese had Confirmation before First Communion around age 7.

When the merger happened, the Bishop set the timing for all at any time between grades 6 and 10, depending on the parish’s wishes. That meant that for several years we had no candidates. Then we were pastorless for a year and nothing happened. Only now are we getting ready to prepare a new group of candidates and it looks as though the Pastor will be preparing them himself.
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At my parish we always chrismate inmediately after baptism, and then communion, even for infants. It’s the ancient way.

It is great that your pastor is taking such a personal stake in it.
 
WetCatechumen said:
At my parish we always chrismate inmediately after baptism, and then communion, even for infants. It’s the ancient way.

It is great that your pastor is taking such a personal stake in it.
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He’s doing this because he’s appalled at the state of catechesis in our parish and those that belonged to the former diocese.

When we lost our Catholic schools in '98, the only thing that was set up was sacramental preparation. For 15 years we’ve had no ongoing catechesis for our children. Home catechesis was attempted but parents were so used to leaving it up to the school that they were not interested in taking it up now that we had no schools. The result is that we only saw kids for a 6-10 week period for preparation for Penance, Confirmation and First Communion – nothing before and nothing after. The last couple of years it’s been just Penance and First Communion.

The result is that we have poorly catechized parents and children. Fr. has his hands full trying to figure out how to address this problem.
 
The way I see it, Confirmation should be raised until 18 or 21 after years of solid catechesis. Standards of maturity have changed a lot, and Confirmation is an adult’s sacrament that makes us soldiers of Christ. That’s why in the past the bishop would slap the person just confirmed.

However, the first thing to do is to profoundly reform the catechesis as we know it, because it’s simply no good, with some exceptions - we need a universal standard of excellence, and we need to get the clergy involved personally in the teaching and lessen the role of the well-intentioned but often greatly unprepared laity - perhaps preparing strict (or stricter) certification courses for lay members.
 
babochka said:
You’re right, although many 16 year olds are in 11th grade. That’s interesting background information about the request for the exception to the law. I recently read that a group of Bishops in Italy wanted to move the confirmation age to 18 and were denied. I’ll see if I can find the link later. For now, my kids and I are heading to the State Fair.

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If they move it to age 18, it moves out of the realm of religious education and into the realm of the RCIA.

People raised in Catholic homes should receive their Sacraments of Initiation while still living at home, in my opinion.
 
R_C said:
The way I see it, Confirmation should be raised until 18 or 21 after years of solid catechesis. Standards of maturity have changed a lot, and Confirmation is an adult’s sacrament that makes us soldiers of Christ. That’s why in the past the bishop would slap the person just confirmed.

However, the first thing to do is to profoundly reform the catechesis as we know it, because it’s simply no good, with some exceptions - we need a universal standard of excellence, and we need to get the clergy involved personally in the teaching and lessen the role of the well-intentioned but often greatly unprepared laity - perhaps preparing strict (or stricter) certification courses for lay members.
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I hope you don’t get spanked as badly as I did for recommending the same thing 😃 By the way…I agree 100%.
 
R_C said:
. Standards of maturity have changed a lot, and** Confirmation is an adult’s sacrament** that makes us soldiers of Christ.
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There is no basis in church teaching for this statement. If you read through this thread, or any of the others on this topic, it is clear that this is an erroneous understanding of this sacrament.
 
R_C said:
The way I see it, Confirmation should be raised until 18 or 21 after years of solid catechesis. Standards of maturity have changed a lot, and Confirmation is an adult’s sacrament that makes us soldiers of Christ. That’s why in the past the bishop would slap the person just confirmed.
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And yet, an unbaptized 18 year old can join the RCIA and be Baptized, Confirmed, and receive his First Holy Communion by Easter of the year of his 18th birthday, after something between 6 months and 2 years of Catechesis.

🤷
 
jmcrae said:
And yet, an unbaptized 18 year old can join the RCIA and be Baptized, Confirmed, and receive his First Holy Communion by Easter of the year of his 18th birthday, after something between 6 months and 2 years of Catechesis.

🤷
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An unbaptized 7-year-old can do the same thing!
 
jmcrae said:
And yet, an unbaptized 18 year old can join the RCIA and be Baptized, Confirmed, and receive his First Holy Communion by Easter of the year of his 18th birthday, after something between 6 months and 2 years of Catechesis.

🤷
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Really, according to Canon Law, an unbaptized 12 year old (or even 8 year old) would be Baptized, Confirmed and receive Holy Communion on Easter as well.

Any catechumen past the age of Reason is received in the same way.
 
maryjk said:
👍 Totally agree.

I do think if we wait for Confirmation until 6th - 9th grade, so “they can make the choice themselves,” (which we shouldn’t do) we should stop fooling ourselves, and wait until they are adults. Most 6th -9th grade teens aren’t making decisions on their own.
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It is as if there was a meeting to decide the age at which a person was most likely to make a important decision for all the wrong reasons, and they went with that. One afternoon with a stack of high school yearbooks ought to be enough to convince anyone that if there is one right age at which one has the right amount of discretion to ask for confirmation, high school is not it. Some are incredibly dedicated–some even as if they were on this earth before and are determined to get it right this time!!–but others obviously have most of their brain wiring totally undone. Why this decision isn’t given to young people when they’re 10 or so and haven’t lost their minds to puberty yet, I have no idea. (Some people, after all, don’t seem to get their brain wiring back until after they’re married…no fault of theirs perhaps, it might just be biology.)
 
The Catechism of the Council of Trent
Confirmation is a Sacrament
That in Confirmation is contained the true and proper nature of a Sacrament has always been acknowledged by the Catholic Church, as Pope Melchiades and many other very holy and very ancient Pontiffs expressly declare. The truth of this doctrine St. Clement could not confirm in stronger terms than when he says: All should hasten without delay to be born again unto God, and afterwards to be signed by the Bishop, that is, to receive the sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost; for, as has been handed down to us from St. Peter, and as the other Apostles taught in obedience to the command of our Lord, he who culpably and voluntarily, and not from necessity, neglects to receive this Sacrament, cannot possibly be a perfect Christian. This same faith has been confirmed, as may be seen in their decrees, by Popes Urban, Fabian and Eusebius, who, filled with the same spirit, shed their blood for the name of Christ.
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The unanimous authority of the Fathers must be added. Among them Denis the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens, when teaching how to consecrate and make use of this holy ointment, says: The priests clothe the person Baptized with a garment emblematic of purity, in order to conduct him to the Bishop; and the Bishop, signing him with the sacred and truly divine ointment, makes him partaker of the most holy communion. Of such importance does Eusebius of Caesarea also deem this Sacrament as not to hesitate to say that the heretic Novatus could not deserve to receive the Holy Ghost, because, having been baptized in a state of severe illness, he was not anointed with the sign of chrism. But on this subject we have the most distinct testimonies from St. Ambrose in his book On the Initiated, and from St. Augustine in his books Against the Epistles of Petilian the Donatist.
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Both of them were so persuaded that no doubt could exist as to the reality of this Sacrament that they even taught and confirmed the doctrine by passages of Scripture, the one testifying that to the Sacrament of Confirmation apply these words of the Apostle: Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed; the other, these words of the Psalmist: Like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, and also these words of the same Apostle: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.
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