{"id":30566,"date":"2015-07-01T22:44:40","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T03:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=30566"},"modified":"2015-07-01T22:44:40","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T03:44:40","slug":"whither-confirmation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/01\/whither-confirmation\/","title":{"rendered":"Whither Confirmation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As some of you may know, I\u2019m a columnist for Commonweal<\/em> magazine. My most recent column concerned the age of Confirmation. I am in favor of what Bishop \u00a0Samuel Aquila of Denver and Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu are doing by lowering the age, and I make a couple of arguments in support of their decision. You can read the whole thing here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cag\"dove-confirmation\"e of confirmation\u201d in the dioceses of the United States at present is 7 to 16.\u00a0This isn\u2019t a coherent vision, it\u2019s an admission of failure to arrive at a coherent vision. I remember once being lectured by a representative of the Catechism office who claimed the question was \u201csettled.\u201d This is nonsense.<\/p>\n

Pope Benedict in Sacramentum Caritatis<\/a><\/em> encouraged bishops to study the question. He did not foreclose the option of a return to the traditional order. What he did, wisely I think, was to prioritize Eucharist.<\/p>\n

Concretely, it needs to be seen which practice better enables the faithful to put the sacrament of the Eucharist at the centre, as the goal of the whole process of initiation. In close collaboration with the competent offices of the Roman Curia, Bishops’ Conferences should examine the effectiveness of current approaches to Christian initiation, so that the faithful can be helped both to mature through the formation received in our communities and to give their lives an authentically eucharistic direction, so that they can offer a reason for the hope within them in a way suited to our times (cf.\u00a01 Pet<\/em>\u00a03:15). (Sac. Car. 18)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pope Francis acknowledged the \u201cexperience of failure\u201d of adolescent confirmation in an address he gave in Sardinia,<\/a> calling it the \u201csacrament of goodbye.\u201d He urged his audience of young people to trust Jesus even in the face of failure and to \u201cput out into the deep\u201d; he did not minimize or paper over the problem. Perhaps it is time for us to \u201ccast our nets to the other side\u201d?<\/p>\n

As you\u2019ll see in my Commonweal<\/em> article, I think there are some critical issues at stake: most importantly, the role of Eucharist as the culmination of Christian initiation.<\/p>\n

I look forward to continuing the conversation here at Pray Tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “age of confirmation” in the dioceses of the United States at present is 7 to 16. 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