The Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, announced it would lower its Confirmation age just days after the Diocese of Salt Lake City shared it would adjust its process for young converts to ensure complete catechesis.
These decisions indicate a growing desire to strengthen the formation of young people in the Catholic faith.
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Tim Glemkowski, who directs Amazing Parisha ministry designed to support Catholic parish priests and help parishes thrive, spoke about the challenges young adults face in today’s culture in remaining Catholic.
“The pressures of culture are moving away from, not conducive to, religious belief and practice,” Glemkowski told EWTN News’ English-language agency CNA. “It is fair to say that our culture, generally speaking, does not lend itself to preconditions.”
As the Church struggles to address how to properly form young people in such a culture, in recent years many dioceses have lowered the Confirmation age from high school to middle school even earlier, including the Archdiocese of Seattle to seventh grade; the Archdiocese of Boston to the eighth grade; and the Archdiocese of Denver to the third degree before the young people have received Communion.
The requirement of Confirmation before Communion is known as “the restored order,” a celebration of the sacraments of initiation as the Church originally instructed them to be administered: Baptism, Confirmation, and then First Communion. The bishops of the United States allow the reception of Confirmation for young people between 7 and 17 years old.
According to a study by St. Mary’s Press and Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the average age of those who left the Church was 13 years old. The study found that many former Catholics who reported leaving the Church, usually between the ages of 10 and 20, said they had questions about the faith as children, but never discussed their doubts or questions with their parents or Church leaders. .
“We need to make sure that young people learn to pray from the heart, that their questions about faith are answered in solid ways, and that they have many opportunities to hear the Gospel and respond to God by giving their lives to Him,” Glemkowski said.
“Holy young people should show us that holiness and heroic mission are possible for young people; We should not underestimate what children are capable of.”
How to address a hostile culture
The Diocese of Baton Rouge recently lowered the confirmation age to seventh grade, citing the challenges facing young people today.
“Our children are experiencing a culture that is, at times, hostile to our faith,” wrote Bishop Michael Duca of Baton Rouge in a carta on December 8.
“Through social networks of all kinds, young people face challenges to their Catholic faith and morals at a surprisingly younger age,” explained Bishop Duca. “Given this new reality, I believe it is time to lower the age of Confirmation to give our children the full grace of the sacrament of Confirmation at an earlier age to meet these challenges.
Bishop Duca announced that the diocese will begin a transition plan to gradually reduce the age from tenth to seventh grade.
“This gift of the Spirit is given to all of us in a special way in the sacrament of Confirmation, which fully initiates us into the Church and fills us with these gifts and the enthusiasm to assume Christ’s mission of renewing the world,” he wrote.
“Many older Catholics remember that the Confirmation age was lower when we were confirmed,” Bishop Duca continued. “After the Second Vatican Council, in many places, the age was raised to secondary school, as many leaders considered that the sacrament would be better understood at an older age. This practice has worked well, but times have changed.”
Strengthening training
The Diocese of Salt Lake City is also developing its catechesis program for young converts who are too old for infant baptism, citing the need to strengthen catechesis within the diocese.
The diocese announced last month that children over the age of 7 who join the Catholic Church will not receive the three sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil after the diocese temporarily suspended the standard practice.
According to the diocesan announcementafter Baptism, children who join the Church in the diocese must attend a faith formation class appropriate to their age instead of receiving several sacraments at once. The pause is temporary while the diocese develops its faith formation plans.
The Church considers that children over 7 years of age are at the “age of reason” and are capable of making some faith decisions for themselves, which is why unbaptized young people usually enroll in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults ( OCIA, adapted for children, a year-long preparation program for becoming Catholic.
The Church demands in general terms that, for sacramental initiation after the use of reason, the recipients receive the three sacraments of initiation at the same time, except in cases of grave reason.
However, the Diocese of Salt Lake City cites “many challenges and our limited ability to overcome them in a missionary diocese” as the reason for the temporary moratorium on OCIA for children.
With the moratorium, the diocese hopes to ensure that catechesis is adequate and that children understand the sacraments in which they are participating; The diocese also seeks to develop its programs to allow unbaptized children to fully assimilate into the faith, according to the announcement.
This pause will end after the diocese develop a “comprehensive faith formation plan,” according to Lorena Needham, director of the diocese’s Worship Office.
Needham noted that OCIA typically comes with many challenges in dioceses.
“There is still a classroom-school-year mentality in which both catechumens and directors try to work within a timeline of a year or less rather than allowing each person to discern their path (along with the discernment of the initiation catechist). Needham told CNA.
Both parents and the child must give their consent to join the Church, but children “cannot give it adequately if they do not know or understand what the sacraments of initiation are,” he noted in the announcement diocesano en Intermountain Catholic.
“There is little training on OCIA in seminars; it’s often just an optional class,” he noted, adding that other groups like LTP, TeamInitiation and the Association for Catechumenal Ministry They offer ongoing training.
To remedy this situation, the Diocese of Salt Lake City hopes to place greater emphasis on formation for Christian initiation.
“Some bishops have taken Christian initiation seriously and made it a central element of their priests’ professional development and pastoral plans,” Needham observed.
The biggest change that will come with the temporary moratorium is that baptized youth over the age of 7 will receive the sacraments one by one instead of all at once. This will involve attending First Communion and Confirmation classes within their age groups.
Under the moratorium, the requirements to obtain Baptism for young people over 7 years of age have not changed. The diocese’s current pastoral directives require an interview with the parents at least 60 days before baptism, as well as a discernment of the parents’ willingness to help the child live a Christian life. Additionally, the parents must be registered with the parish or live within its boundaries, and the parish must provide baptismal preparation for the child, parents, and godparents.
“The hope for our young people, our families and, indeed, for all of us in this diocese is that we have the best possible opportunities to learn and live our faith, regardless of when the Holy Spirit moves us or our parents to give the next step of faith,” Needham said in the announcement.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Kate Quinones
Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a member of College Fix. He has publications in the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register and CatholicVote. He graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.