Under the current norms in the U.S., Latin-rite bishops may confirm between the age of discretion in canon law (approximately age 7) and 16 years old.
The Manchester Diocese is on its way to become the 11th Latin-rite diocese to order the sacraments of initiation in theological sequence: baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist.
Timothy Gabrielli, a theology professor at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and author of Confirmation: How a Sacrament of God's Grace Became All About Us, told the National Catholic Register that Eastern Catholic Churches provide all three sacraments at once in this order, even to infants. Whereas in the Western (or Latin) Church, priests baptize, but bishops continue to confirm.
Gabrielli explained that when St. Pius X – in Quam Singulari (1910), his decree on first Communion – lowered the threshold age of first Communion to approximately 7 years old, he said nothing regarding confirmation, which had been received before the Eucharist. So in the U.S., the Latin-rite bishops left confirmation in place, confirming around 12 or 14 years old.
But the U.S. Church's theology has shifted as a result, to try to explain this particular order of having confirmation at 14, but first Eucharist at 7.
In the early 20th century, Gabrielli said, confirmation took on militant imagery, where the sacrament turned a youth into a solider of Christ, ready to suffer for the faith – typified by the "slap" from the bishop – at a time when the Catholic immigrant population of the U.S. was in tension with the broader Protestant American culture.
Later in the 1970s, a time when Catholics had assimilated into broader American life, he said, Catholics began searching for a different theological explanation, and confirmation became influenced by the Charismatic Renewal movement.
Gabrielli said by the 1980s, confirmation turned into the sacrament of a Catholic's "individual choice" for God – almost the Catholic equivalent of a "believer's baptism."
However, Gabrielli said this theology of confirmation has also fallen short in practical terms: For most pre-teens and teenagers, confirmation involves not their "individual choice," but "strong-arming" from parents or grandparents.
The "graduation mentality," he said, dismisses the need for ongoing faith formation and makes it difficult for young people to understand how they can experience moments of doubt if they made that decision for faith at confirmation.
Gabrielli said no one has thus far conducted a study with metrics about the effectiveness of restored order of the sacraments compared with the status quo in other dioceses. Two dioceses – Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and Marquette, Michigan – had originally restored the order of sacraments, but later reverted to the baptism-first Eucharist-confirmation sequence.
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Restoring the order requires a diocese facilitate "quite a cultural shift for it to sink in," according to Gabrielli. But he said that at whatever age dioceses confirm, they need to get away from the idea that this is a sacrament of maturity and back to the understanding that confirmation is a free, unmerited gift of God's grace.
Denver's Experiment
The Archdiocese of Denver moved to restore the order of the sacraments of initiation in 2015. It was the second time for Archbishop Samuel Aquila, who had restored the original order when he was bishop of Fargo, North Dakota, in 2002.
In a March 2015 interview with the National Catholic Register, the archbishop said Benedict XVI had strongly encouraged his efforts during his 2012 ad limina visit, where bishops are required by the Church to report to the pope on the status of their dioceses.
Scott Elmer, director of evangelization and family life ministries at the Denver Archdiocese, told the National Catholic Register that parishes are on track to make third grade the normative age for confirmation by 2020. Constant and consistent communication, he said, has been key to educating the faithful about the reasons for the change.
"After a couple of weeks, most people were receptive to it," he said.