Confirmation should not be just a check in the box!
Middle school is the worst time to confirm kids.
They’re hormonal, disagreeable, argumentative.
They’re also trying to figure out their own place in the world and transitioning from blindly accepting the faith of their parents to understanding what they themselves truly believe.
Which often means they’re unsure of what they believe and their faith is shaky.
But is teenage Confirmation propping up the current religious education system? And, if it wasn’t there, would childhood religious education collapse?
Confirmation: the carrot on the stick
Confirmation is the proverbial carrot on the religious education stick that draws kids and parents through the system. It seems Catholic parents are hardwired for one thing when it comes to their child’s spiritual upbringing–get the sacraments!
For a long time I’ve fought against this. Merely getting the sacraments is not a real goal. The goal should be conversion and spiritual transformation. Confirmation is a vehicle for that…not an end in itself.
Despite that, in Catholic culture today, Confirmation is a kind of like sacramental graduation. Once you’ve got it there’s no need for any more instruction in the Faith. You can go on about the rest of your life.
Restored order and the reduction of carrot inventories
Recently, I was participating in a Facebook forum about Confirmation when the topic turned to restored order and the age of Confirmation.
Restored order refers to giving kids Confirmation before their First Communion. This is actually the correct sequence for receiving the Sacraments of Initiation–Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. That’s the way it’s done for adults at the Easter Vigil. It’s the way it’s always been done.
Confirmation is tied to Baptism. It’s a completion and increase of baptismal graces. The Eucharist is really the pinnacle of Christian initiation so it should be received last. It is the summit of the sacramental life, and union with God is the goal of Christianity…what everything tends toward.
So, there’s been a push in many dioceses to “restore” the order of Confirmation to what it, theologically, should be. The byproduct, of course, is that Confirmation would happen a lot earlier because the norm for celebrating First Communion is 2nd grade. No more carrots.
I’ve always been in favor of the restored order and younger ages for Confirmation.
The primary benefit is that children receive the graces of Confirmation much earlier. The hope is, if they have those graces working for them longer, they’ll be better prepared for their teenage years and won’t fall away.
Sherry’s bombshell
In the midst of the Confirmation discussion, Sherry Weddell brought this up:
Sherry Weddell — On top of the theological issues, there is the real life burning issue which I’ve already had “confirmed” by local leaders. One of the consequences of our failure to evangelize our own is that children who are confirmed earlier, leave earlier. If we confirm them at 12 or 8, they are gone at 12 or 8. if we confirm them as infants, they will hang around only long enough to receive first communion and then they will be gone. The sad thing is: the earlier we give the the sacraments, the less chance we have to do any meaningful childhood catechesis. The rise of wide-spread infant confirmation will mean, at a practical level, the collapse of the entire child-oriented CCD/religious ed system. Which will leave us only one alternative: ad gentes-style, missionary evangelization of adults.
I had never considered these possibilities:
- If kids aren’t evangelized the effect of Confirmation will be negligible. With little or no faith, Confirmation won’t do much for them. They won’t be any closer to staying Catholic than before. There goes that benefit.
- If Confirmation happens earlier, will parents drop their kids out of religious education earlier?
It’s an interesting question to ask, if we have wide-spread restored order and kids get confirmed by 3rd grade, will that signal the collapse of significant childhood catechesis? Sherry seems to have evidence that this is happening in restored order dioceses.
Catechetical takeaway
I’m the last one to advocate for the carrot on the stick approach to Confirmation. I don’t like the implications.
However, with the culture the way it is, it might be the only option to keep the majority of kids in religious education.
Until things change that is. The challenge we have is to actively evangelize parents and children to reverse this trend. We need to change parent’s check in the box attitude toward their children’s faith development.
We need to convert our children while they’re young. We need to teach them that sacraments are transformative and give power to live well. They’re not just something you get because the time is right and they’re not graduation.
What do you think? Given these circumstances, is restored order a bad thing? Could it collapse the current religious education system? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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Mr. Cardaronella- There’s a way to test Sherry’s theory (i.e., the younger the age kids receive confirmation, the younger they “leave” the church).
Eastern Catholics chrismate (confirm) babies when they are baptized. (The Orthodox and Oriental churches do so as well). Thus, following Sherry’s theory, kids baptized and raised in Eastern rite churches should “leave” those churches at an even younger age than Latin rite Catholics. However, if Latin rite kids leave at the same or earlier age as their Eastern rite counterparts, then the cause of the leaving is not due to the age they were confirmed.
I think you correctly identified the problem, but it’s not the age of confirmation. It’s the parents. Since it’s the parents, it’s better, in my opinion, to give the kids the full graces from the sacraments of initiation at as early an age as possible.
Absolutely! I have friends whose first four kids were “chrismated” (received all three sacraments of initiation as infants) and whose second four kids are marching through the sacraments as we experience them in the Roman rite. I have to say, the four who were chrismated and then catechized are MUCH more knowledgeable and committed to their faith than their younger sibs. Don’t underestimate the power of sacramental grace! The grace is real. It effects a change whether we know it or not. I second your assessment: It’s not the age of confirmation, it’s the parents and their modeling of committed Christianity.
That’s fascinating Katie! That’s exactly the way it’s supposed to work. The graces of the sacrament work to help the kids learn better and be more committed to their faith. I think you’re right, you can’t underestimate the power of that grace! Of course, you are also probably doing a lot within your family environment to nurture that faith and help your kids be disposed to receiving it in greater measure. I would really love to see statistics from a restored order diocese to know if it made a difference in youth group attendance or other factors as the kids grew older. I’m sure it’s a mixed bag though like everything…some better some worse. But still, what is the factor for the better? Is it the family faith environment? Some great questions to ask.
Yeah, that’s a good point! I’m sure you could test the theory that way. There’s a little bit of cultural difference in the Eastern rites but probably not that much. I have to agree with you, though. I think the age is not extremely important. It’s just a way of measuring relative progress. It’s probably more accurate to speak of stages. And yes, of course, the parents are so essential. I wish more parents could understand that. Every time I talk to catechists about problems with their ministry, the first words out of their mouth’s is the parents don’t back up the teaching at home. The family is so essential in re-enforcing the teaching from RE classes and helping kids to live it out.
Marc, I’d like to hear your thoughts about evangelizing parents, because it’s a problem I’ve seen for years in our parish and it’s only getting stronger/worse (or I’m seeing it better?). I feel like the argument about Confirmation ages is…well, almost silly. Because until the parents really care…then again, all is not lost. The graces of the sacraments are worth a lot.
Evangelizing parents is the most important and most difficult thing I’ve run across yet. I’ve run a family catechesis program for many years with mixed success. The aim was to do something about evangelizing the parents. A family catechesis program is really an adult education program because if you get the parents the kids will follow. The kids are not just the carrot to get the parents in the door, but that’s a large part. For years I heard DRE’s complain that parents were the weak link in their catechetical programming, so I tried to do something about it. As I said before, it had mixed success. I still can’t get the majority of parish families involved and I’ve had limited success in converting them. I have had a few spectacular successes though.
Perhaps it’s a problem larger than an individual catechesis program and needs to be addressed at the overall parish level. If the parish has a culture of adult formation that draws parents in and gets them to care about their faith, then they’ll be more involved in their children’s religious education and want to be a part of a program like family catechesis.
At any rate, parents really are the weak link here catechetically. If they don’t reinforce and nurture the Faith within the family environment, it’s much harder for the catechetical program to produce a lasting impact on their kids. Adult formation is the key, but it will have to be a parish culture and ethos.
I think this was the mentality of many people even when I was confirmed over 35 years ago. Show up for the sacraments and that is about it. I’m a catechist now, and at my church and Diocese I see many more opportunities for adult religious education and family faith learning than I ever remember being available in years past. It’s just a challenge getting people to participate in them. I think the earlier age confirmation would be appropriate and would make a great impact if they still had to do the typical volunteer service and research / report on the saint whose name they are taking. I think young kids need to be introduced to helping others and learning for some greater purpose than just getting a grade on a report card and graduating.
I think you’re right there Renee. Earlier age confirmations would likely mean the programming had to step it up to keep kids engaged and get them more involved in the parish. That would kind of be the reverse of service hour requirements for Confirmation. Instead of doing them before, kids would be required to do more service in the parish after Confirmation. It would have to be meaningful though, like real ministries, not mindless busy-work. They would need that greater sense of purpose. With these factors, I bet younger age confirmations would have a greater impact.
Yes! Offering programs is not enough. Getting people to participate is the real trick, isn’t it?
Superb discussion. Thanks Marc and everybody!
Sharing!