The Dispatch

Lower confirmation ages, stronger catechesis: Dioceses seek to strengthen faith of youth

December 19, 2024 Catholic News Agency 38
A confirmation Mass is held at St. Mary’s Parish on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, in Franklin, Massachusetts. / Credit: St. Mary’s Parish

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2024 / 05:15 am (CNA).

The Diocese of Baton Rouge announced it would be lowering its confirmation age, just days after the Diocese of Salt Lake City shared it would adjust its process for youth converts to ensure thorough catechesis. 

These decisions indicate a growing desire to strengthen the formation of youth in the Catholic faith. 

Tim Glemkowski, who heads Amazing Parish, a ministry designed to support Catholic pastors and help parishes flourish, spoke to the challenges of remaining Catholic that young adults face in the culture today.

“The pressures of the culture are away from, not toward, religious belief and practice,” Glemkowski told CNA. “It is fair to say that our culture, broadly speaking, does not lend itself to preconditions.”

As the Church strives to address how to properly form youth in such a culture, in recent years many dioceses have lowered the confirmation age from high school to middle school or even younger, including the Archdiocese of Seattle, to seventh grade; the Boston Archdiocese to eighth grade; and the Archdiocese of Denver to third grade before young people have received communion. 

Requiring confirmation before communion is known as “the restored order” — a celebration of the sacraments of initiation as the Church originally instructed them to be dispensed: baptism, confirmation, and then first communion. The U.S. bishops allow reception of confirmation for youth between ages 7 and 17. 

According to a study by St. Mary’s Press and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University (CARA), the median age of those who left the Church was 13 years old. The study found that many former Catholics who reported leaving usually between ages 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 ensure that youth learn how to pray with their heart, have their questions about the faith answered in robust ways, and have many opportunities to hear the Gospel and respond to God by handing over their life to him,” Glemkowski said. 

“Young saints should show us that holiness and heroic mission is possible for young people; we should not underestimate what kids are capable of.”

Addressing a hostile culture 

The Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recently lowered the confirmation age to seventh grade, citing the challenges that face youth today.

“Our children are experiencing a culture which, at times, is hostile to our faith,” Bishop Michael Duca of Baton Rouge wrote in a Dec. 8 letter

“Through social media of all forms, young people are confronted at a surprisingly younger age with challenges to their Catholic faith and morals,” Duca explained. “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. 

Duca announced they would begin a transition plan to lower the age from 10th to seventh grade gradually. 

“This gift of the Spirit is given to all of us in a special way in the sacrament of confirmation that fully initiates us into the Church and fills us with these gifts and the enthusiasm to take on the mission of Christ to renew the world,” he wrote. 

“Many older Catholics remember that the age of confirmation was younger when we were confirmed,” Duca continued. “After the Second Vatican Council, in many places, the age was raised to high school since many leaders felt that the sacrament would be better understood at an older age. This practice has worked well, but times have changed.”  

Strengthening formation 

The diocese of Salt Lake City is also developing its catechetical program for youth converts who are too old for infant baptism, citing a need to strengthen catechesis within the diocese. 

The diocese announced last month that children above the age of seven who are joining the Catholic Church will not receive all three sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil after the diocese temporarily paused the standard practice. 

After baptism, children joining the Church in the diocese are to attend a faith formation class at their age level, rather than receiving several sacraments at once, according to the diocesan announcement. The pause is temporary as the diocese develops its faith formation plans.

The Church considers children older than seven to be at the “age of reason” and able to make some decisions of faith for themselves, so unbaptized youth are usually enrolled in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) adapted for children, a year-long preparation program for becoming Catholic. 

The Church broadly requires that for sacramental initiation after the age of reason, recipients should receive the three sacraments of initiation at the same time, except with 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.  

Through the moratorium, the diocese hopes to ensure that catechesis is adequate and that children understand the sacraments they are participating in; the diocese is also looking to develop its programs in order to enable unbaptized children to fully assimilate into the faith, according to the announcement. 

This pause will end after the diocese develops a “comprehensive faith formation plan,” according to Lorena Needham, director of the Office of Worship for the diocese.

Needham noted that OCIA generally comes with many challenges across dioceses. 

“There is still a classroom-school year mentality in which both catechumen and directors try to work within a timeline of one year or less, instead of allowing each person to discern their journey (along with the discernment of the initiation catechist),” Needham told CNA. 

Both the parents and the child must consent to joining the Church — but children “cannot adequately give [consent] if they do not know and understand what the sacraments of initiation are,” she noted in the diocesan announcement in Intermountain Catholic. 

“There is little training in the seminaries on the OCIA — often it is just an optional class,” she noted, adding that other groups such as LTPTeamInitiation, and the Association for Catechumenal Ministry offer ongoing training. 

To remedy this situation, the diocese of Salt Lake City hopes to place a greater emphasis on training for Christian initiation. 

“Some bishops have taken Christian Initiation to heart and made it a focus for the professional development of their priests and central to their pastoral plans,” Needham observed.  

The biggest change under the temporary moratorium mandates that youth baptized above the age of seven will receive sacraments one at a time, rather than all at once. This will entail attending first communion and confirmation classes within their age groups.

Under the moratorium, the requirements for obtaining baptism for youth over age seven are unchanged. The current pastoral directives of the diocese require a parent interview at least 60 days before the baptism, as well as discernment of the parents’ readiness to help the child live a Christian life. In addition, parents must be registered in the parish or live within its boundaries, and the parish must provide baptismal preparation for the child, parents, and godparents.

“The hope for our youth, 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 take the next step of faith,” Needham said in the announcement. 

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The Dispatch

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The Dispatch

The beauty and power of the O Antiphons

December 16, 2024 Catholic News Agency 0
Advent wreath St. Catherine’s Church in Bethlehem / Credit: Marinella Bandini

National Catholic Register, Dec 16, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!”

This favored Christmas carol is no carol at all. It’s a hymn for the season of Advent — the liturgical season that is about so much more than simply preparing for Christmas. 

During these short four weeks, the Church has historically focused on Our Lord Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all prophecy and human yearning as she anticipates not only the celebration of his incarnation at Christmas but also as she waits in hope for his glorious return at the end of time.

The verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” are taken from seven ancient antiphons that the Church has used in her evening prayer liturgy since well before the ninth century. Every year, from Dec. 17 to Dec. 23, the Church’s liturgy enters a more intense and proximate preparation for Christ’s coming at Christmas. This shift is noticeable in the readings at Mass during these days but also in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, specifically at evening prayer. Every evening during that week, the Church prays one of what have become known as the great “O Antiphons” before reciting Our Lady’s “Magnificat” canticle.

The O Antiphons invoke Our Lord using imagery taken from the Old Testament: “O Wisdom From on High”; “O Lord of the House of Israel”; “O Root of Jesse’s Stem”; “O Key of David”; “O Radiant Dawn”; “O King of the Nations”; and “O Emmanuel.” To these biblical images are added various pleas such as: “Come to teach us the path of knowledge!”; “Come to save us without delay!”; and “Come and free the prisoners of darkness!”

Each of these O Antiphons is a beautiful prayer in itself, but each also demonstrates exactly how the Church has come to understand Christ’s relationship to the promises and images of God so prevalent in the Old Testament.

“O Wisdom From on High!”

Isaiah prophesied that a shoot would sprout from the stump of Jesse. One of Jesse’s heirs would be a messianic figure and redeemer for Israel.

“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding” (Is 11:1-2). Because Isaiah’s prophecies look forward so expectantly to the redemption of Israel and the whole world in the great promises of God, he is particularly the prophet of the season of Advent.

Christ, however, is more than the Anointed One. St. Paul told the Church in Corinth that “Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Christ is the Wisdom that the Book of Proverbs speaks of as God’s artisan and delight (Proverbs 8). The Eternally Begotten Son is always the delight of the Father and the Artisan through whom all things were made.

Perhaps a more poignant instance of a powerful Old Testament image of the divine is the Dec. 18 antiphon: “O Lord of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai.” The events recounted in the Book of Exodus are magnificently tremendous, from the burning bush to the parting of the Red Sea to the giving of the Law to Moses at a Mount Sinai covered in thunder and lightning.

The Church Fathers routinely noted Christ’s presence in God’s various manifestations to the Israelites. St. Justin Martyr recalled: “The same One, who is both angel and God, and Lord and man, and who appeared in human form to Abraham and Isaac, [also] appeared in a flame of fire from the bush and conversed with Moses.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa comments on the events of the desert — the clouds, the thunder, and the tabernacle of God’s presence — “Taking a hint from what has been said by Paul, who partially uncovered the mystery of these things, we say that Moses was earlier instructed by a type in the mystery of the tabernacle which encompasses the universe.” This tabernacle, Christ the Son of God, he continues, “is in a way both unfashioned and fashioned, uncreated in preexistence but created in having received this material composition.”

The preexisting Eternal Son of God who is the perfect image of God is also the presence of God in the flaming bush, on Mount Sinai and perfectly in his incarnation.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Latin version of this antiphon begins with “O Adonai,” borrowing the Hebrew word God-fearing Jews speak when reading the Torah to avoid speaking the proper name of God himself — it is the name Lord, the name St. Paul tells the Philippians was bestowed on Christ because he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself unto death (cf. Philippians 2:6-11). Jesus Christ is Adonai. He is Kyrios. He is the Lord.

Finally, other O Antiphons identify Christ as the fulfillment of Israel’s greatness and human longing. He is the Oriens, the dawn that Isaiah promised would rise upon God’s chosen people (Isaiah 60:1-2). He is also the Root of Jesse. So he is not only the fulfillment but the beginning of the Israelite lineage.

He is the Creator and the One through whom David’s lineage came to be. So Christ is both the beginning and end of the promise to David. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the One the Old Testament predicts will rule as king of all the nations.

The O Antiphons are much more than simple refrains to be chanted before Our Lady’s Magnifcat or to serve as verses in an Advent hymn. They reveal the mysteries of Christ already being revealed in the power and glory of God in the Old Testament.

St. Thomas Aquinas was right to insist that many of the great prophets of Israel had real and explicit prophetic knowledge of Jesus and his mysteries even though they lived hundreds of years before the Incarnation. “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day,” Jesus himself once preached. “He saw it, and he was glad” (Jn 8:56). Christ is active in Israel. He is in the Old Testament.

These great antiphons remind us that there is so much more to Advent than preparing for Christmas. They remind us that Christ is the focal point of salvation history, and, in fact, of all world history, because he is Emmanuel — “God with us.”

The wisdom of God is exactly such that the Lord creates us to be in relationship with him in order to bring light not only to our lives but to the world. Every year the Church gives us these four weeks so that we might remember in an intense way what we should be living every day: in preparation, anticipation, and joyful hope that the Lord will come to us and save us.

O Emmanuel, Our King and Giver of Law: Come to save us, Lord Our God!

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

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