Reinventing the wheel on Confirmation

The idea of making Confirmation at a later age has caused a debate, writes Cathal Barry

A suggestion by a Catholic bishop to alter the age the Sacrament of Confirmation is administered at has caused quite a stir.

Launching Catholic Schools Week in the diocese of Limerick, Bishop Brendan Leahy suggested that Confirmation should be postponed until students are at least 16-years-old.

Concerned that children were “floating” into the sacrament “detached from the experience of a living Christian community of faith”, Bishop Leahy stressed the need to “re-awaken students to the fact that being a Catholic is an option”.

“While we can be grateful for so much support for Catholic schools in Ireland and the fact that so many still declare themselves Catholic, we have also to acknowledge that faith can perhaps imperceptibly but nevertheless really be enveloped by a crust of indifference,” Dr Leahy said.

“The result can be that the institutional transmission of faith occurs through practices that in themselves are wonderful but in reality risk immunising young people from the Faith. We can have wonderful sacramental ceremonies but the child finds little resonance between that and what is going on in his/her everyday life at home.”

In terms of the logistics, the Sacrament of Confirmation can be administered at any stage, following baptism.

The ideal sequence of the Sacraments of Christian Initiation is Baptism followed by Confirmation and then the Eucharist, as participation in the Eucharist is seen as the highpoint of life of the Church.

That is how it was in the earliest days of the Church and is still the practice among Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Latin West have tended to separate these sacraments. So, the tradition and history offers much variety regarding Confirmation.

Bishop Leahy has acknowledged that there are “good theological reasons” to the approach taken by the Eastern Orthodox Church. However, he maintains Confirmation at a later age could build on the “good pastoral opportunity” that exists in Ireland.

To get a handle on whether postponing the age of Confirmation is a realistic proposal The Irish Catholic spoke to Theologian Dr Eugene Duffy.

Dr Duffy of the school of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick pointed out that a “central problem” in the administration of the Sacraments of Initiation is “the question of intention and freedom”.

“Obviously an infant cannot exercise any freedom of intention. The solution is to say that if there is a prospect that the child can be raised as a Christian by parents or guardians, then it can be baptised,” he said.

However, by delaying Confirmation and Eucharist, there is then room for an “exercise of freedom and intention” by the child, Dr Duffy noted.

Limitations

“This case is made more with respect to Confirmation than the Eucharist. There is an emphasis on the recipient being prepared to act as a witness to the Christian faith,” he said.

This approach has its limitations, of course.

“There is always the risk that the child, baptised in infancy, will not be supported in living the Faith,” Dr Duffy said.

“So there is a risk in conferring baptism. The Eastern Church takes this risk with the Sacraments of Initiation by conferring them all at once.”

So, it seems, arguments can be made for conferring all the sacraments at once or for delaying them for longer or shorter periods.

“Ideally, the sacraments should be conferred in the order,” Dr Duffy said. That is: Baptism, Confirmation and finally, Eucharist.

This was the practice from the 16th until the beginning of the 20th Century in this part of the world. Then with the introduction of First Communion at the age of seven this sequence was altered.

According to Dr Duffy, a change to conferring Confirmation at a later age would amount to “further separating” the link between Baptism and Confirmation in the experience of the recipients.

Why not delay first Eucharist as well?

Dr Duffy insists “the pastoral advantages and disadvantages need to be weighed”.

“Currently, the primary schools prepare the children to receive Confirmation and do as well as can be expected, especially in situations where the parents may not be practising their faith on a regular basis and where the parish has minimal involvement,” he said.

Partnership

Recognising that “a well-defined curriculum” delivered by competent teachers is currently in place, Dr Duffy warned that if Confirmation is moved to teenage years, “then there is a question of who will prepare and accompany the teenagers”.

“Ideally,” he said, “it should be a partnership of parents, school and parish.”

However, given very few parishes are equipped with the personnel who would deliver adequate preparation programmes and the second-level sector is not parish based and many of them are not under Church patronage, Dr Duffy contended “they can hardly be expected to take on this task”.

According to the theologian, if such a proposal were to work, “serious investment” will have to be made in “educating and preparing” parish-based catechists who will work with teenagers in preparation for the reception of the sacrament.

“Obviously, this is something that will take time and careful planning,” he said.

Dr Duffy recommended looking to the experiences of other dioceses, especially in England and Wales, where younger and older ages for Confirmation have been tried.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel ourselves,” he said.

 

While Limerick may be considering postponing Confirmation, Catholic dioceses in some parts of the world are returning to the traditional order, allowing children to be confirmed before they receive their first Holy Communion for the first time at the age of seven or eight.

In Salford diocese in England, which oversees Catholic churches in towns and villages in Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire, the former bishop, Patrick Kelly, decided to reinstate the symbolic context of Confirmation.

After infant baptism, children in parishes throughout the diocese would be confirmed at the age of eight at Pentecost. They would make their first Confession (Sacrament of Reconciliation) in Advent and first Holy Communion the following Easter.

This has been the practise in Salford for more than 30 years and according to diocesan Chancellor Fr Christopher Dawson (pictured), “most parishes are very happy with it”.

When asked if confirming a child at the age of seven or eight was too young, Fr Dawson told The Irish Catholic it “depends how you view the sacrament”.

“If you view Confirmation as a commitment then eight-year-old children are probably too young to fully understand what they are committing to theologically.

“However, if you view it as something that is left over from Baptism as a sacrament of strengthening for Christian life, ministry and witness then I think it’s more than appropriate,” he said.