By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
Still have questions about the diocese’s upcoming plan to confirm 7-year-olds? You may call your parish. The parish receptionist should have most of the answers, or at least 16 of them.
As part of the diocese’s efforts to teach parishioners about upcoming changes in the administration of confirmation, the diocesan Office of Worship recently distributed to parish receptionists a quick reference guide on the “original order of the sacraments of initiation” — 16 questions and answers to parishioners’ expected queries.
Questions like: “Why are we confirming young children?” “Are children ready to be confirmed in grade 2?” “What if my older child [grades 3-12] also needs confirmation and first holy Communion?” “What if I feel my child is not ready?” “How will they be prepared?” And more.
Here is the first question and answer: “Why are we confirming young children?”
“In 2016 Bishop Silva promulgated that our diocese would celebrate the sacraments of initiation in their original order (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist) and confirmation at the age of reason, which is around 7 years old. After much consultation with many people in the diocese, we would like to offer our young people the gift of the Holy Spirit that is given in a special way in the sacrament of confirmation, as they grow up, not when they are nearly done growing up. In fact, the order of baptism, confirmation and first Communion had been in place for almost 1,900 of the church’s 2,000 year history, so this is a restoration of what is actually the norm in all the official liturgical books.”
The change to giving confirmation to second graders will be staggered for parishes over the next several years.
First reconciliation (confession), though not a sacrament of initiation, will continue to be administered in the second grade, before Confirmation.
Baptism will still be given to infants.
Bishop Larry Silva announced these changes last year April. He published the details on Jan. 10 in a “Decree of Promulgation” for the “Norms for the Preparation for and Celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation and First Penance.”
In his letter introducing the norms, Bishop Silva said “Celebrating the sacraments in this order was the universal practice of the early church.”
He also said it is the sequence celebrated in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and consistently practiced by Eastern Catholic Churches.
Hawaii’s parishes have divided themselves into three groups that will stagger the transition. Each group has about two years to complete the change from administering confirmation in high school to the second grade.
Each parish chose its group depending on its readiness to implement “comprehensive” high school-age youth ministry to supplant programs now oriented toward preparing for the sacrament of confirmation.
Parishes and Catholic schools will have to update their second grade sacrament curriculums to include confirmation.
The bishop will delegate parish priests to administer confirmation to the “catch up” students, those between grades two and 12 not yet confirmed. These confirmations will take place, after a year’s preparation, all at once on the feast of Pentecost.
The bishop will confirm high school students for three more years, 2016 to 2018, before beginning to confirm all second graders in 2019.
In his announcement last year, Bishop Silva gave this practical reason for making the transition. “What we are doing (now) is not working very well. Confirmation is often experienced more as a graduation from the church than as a free gift of God’s grace.”
“We believe that Confirmation gives the gifts of the Holy Spirit — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and the fear of the Lord,” he said. “Young people need these gifts as they grow up, not when they are nearly done growing up.”
