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1. Children receiving Confirmation and First Holy Communion together at the age of about 8 and parents being responsible has been the norm in Qld for some years. I believe this has proved disastrous as children are too young to understand and most parents have little religious knowledge and rarely attend church so are unable to pass on knowledge to their children. So what we see is parents bringing their children to 'get it done' like they do with baptism and then maybe when older the children turn up again for marriage or funeral celebrations. When children were confirmed at an older age they attended church for more years and had a better chance of understanding their religion and maybe staying in the church community.
   One has to wonder why the church powers are intent on degrading the Catholic Church.

   Posted By: Kate, North Qld

2. That's hardly news! 20 years ago dioceses in Australia began the process of correcting the error that occurred in the early 1900s and most have now restored the traditional order of the sacraments of initiation.

   Posted By: Elizabeth Harrington, Brisbane

3. Good for you, Liverpool. We support you with ou4 prayers and we wish you well.
   

   Posted By: Joe Duffy, Sunshine Coast

4. A very poor idea; parents in reality are often woefully unable to teach the Faith.
   As Confirmation confirms one's Baptismal Vows made by proxy in infancy, this adult decision cannot be validly made by an eight year old.
   As if the Church didn't have enough problems! Liverpool will end up with no Catholics at all in twenty years!

   Posted By: stan harris sun valley california

5. Confirmation is not fundamentally an 'adult decision' to continue with the faith.
   To limit it to this naturalistic interpretation is to ignore the objective, sacramental reality of confirmation as taught by the Church.
   If confirmation is meant to be purely a ceremony of making an adult decision, then woe be to all our Eastern Rite and Orthodox brethren who confirm their children shortly after baptism. The practice of the East (for those willing to think outside the Anglo-Celtic experience) is a testament to the more traditional understanding of confirmation as the conferral of an objective sacramental character and supernatural gifts on a person, be they baby, child or adult.
   Or do we simply interpret the Church in naturalistic terms, forgetting the supernatural reality of the Sacraments?

   Posted By: Tom, Sydney

6. I second what Tom said - these are sacraments that confer supernatural grace on the recipients.
   I am interested that Elizabeth Harrington suggests that Pope St Pius X made an error in his reform to allow younger childern to receive Holy Communion.
   In this increasingly secular age, I think young Catholics need all the spiritual helps they can get. Depriving them of the sacraments because of ideological views (borrowed from protestantism it seems to me) is not going to help them.

   Posted By: Peter, Canberra, Australia

7. I think that we might well keep in mind that the progression of the Sacraments of Initiation we have largely inherited dates back to a time when the Catholic Community was large, vitally committed and practising.
   It is none of these things anymore and for many reasons.
   Some blame contraction, wrongly I believe, on post Vat II Church.
   People now find active Church membership non-core, marginal, and have found different worlds to inhabit.
   It seems to me that Evangelisation must challenge the marginal majority with a choice between photo-op 'sociological' Sacraments (don't forget the clobber, presents, parties) and an adult, 'convinced' participation in the faith community. I think it is time for the Church to do some hard, prophetic, things such as to offer Confirmation and Eucharist at around 17-18 years of age. These are central Rites of Passage which require thought, understand and choice not reliance on some kind of 'supernatural' solution.
   Grace is not a conferred quantifiable substance but the quality of lived relationship between God and human beings.
   We are not talking Harry Potter here!

   Posted By: David Timbs, Albion. Victoria.

8. It is very, very sad knowing that hardly any of those receiving 1st Holy Communion, Confirmation etc., will be back again until weddings, funerals, or the occassional Easter or Christmas.
   The order in which those sacraments is received is somewhat besides the point.
   Making their first confession beforehand though should be a must. We have let down our young people immensely, and have done them a great disservice, by not drilling home to them what sin really is, and what the Third commandment means in terms of Sunday worship.
   It seems that our youth are not being given the message, that fear of disappointing God (in terms of consciously neglecting Sunday worship) may be one thing, but Loving Him ever more so because of what the Mass really is everthing.
   The problem is simply that we aren't successfully communicating the message that our Faith requires us to communicate to our youth.
   Young people will not believe us if we don't ourselves live what we profess. Even if it is that we simply don't have enough fire in the belly to get our message across, then at least everyone can still get off the internet, recordings of Fulton Sheen that retain that personable warmth, attractiveness, and fiery dynamism of hearing that message in person, and where it all makes perfect sense!

   Posted By: Quentin, Taree

9. I was certainly not suggesting that it was an error for Pius X to lower the age for Holy Communion.
   The error lay in not lowering the age for Confirmation at the same time, resulting in the traditional order of the sacraments of initiation being disrupted.

   Posted By: Elizabeth Harrington, Brisbane

10. The Jewish faith must have something right; virtually nothing has changed since the time of Christ, including the Lords Prayer.
    

    Posted By: L Newington Bendigo Victoria

11. The problem is not with the age the children or young person receives the sacraments of Confirmation or Eucharist but the education in faith of all the faithful.
    The Catholic Education system have lost the plot many years ago and it has now become a private education which everyone wants and so they should.
    But the people who want a Private Catholic Education should be practicing Catholics on a very regular basis.
    This is where the faith is being lost as many people do not know their responsibilities as they the parents have not been taught themselves.
    Maybe it would be a great idea to re-educate everyone from the children to the parents in the faith and its practices when they enquire about Catholic Education for their children.
    Or when they bring their children along for Sacramental education when they are outside the Catholic school make sure that the parents are practicing and if not try and encourage them into a program such as Catholics coming back or such like and then the problem may be solved.
    The wonderful opportunity is coming with the changes in the liturgy.
    Go for it but do not prevent children from receiving the sacraments when it is not their fault because they and their parents know no better.

    Posted By: Ann Geelong

12. Elizabeth, you still use the terms error and traditional order... of the sacraments.
    Many of us older folk who were confirmed at puberty feel this was more appropriate, as it gave some chance for educators and/or parents to instil some responsibility and better understanding of faith and this Sacrament. First Holy Communion at age 7+ is a time for strengthening graces and should be comprehensible to a child nurtured in the faith from Baptism.
    But let's choose what best fits our young Catholics needs today. WWJD?

    Posted By: Marjorie, Brisbane

13. Great work, Liverpool - it's time to straighten up the messy situation prevailing so many dioceses. I agree with David Timbs, though - we need a prophetic leap in our practice.
    I'd leap even further - let's delay Baptism itself until the late teens. Let's make acceptance of the Christian way an adult decision made after years of catechesis, as did the early Christians.
    Then it may mean something more than just 'getting it done' as Kate of North Queensland mentions. I agree with you, Kate, that that's what it has become for so many, but it happens here in Melbourne, too, where Confirmation happens several years after first reception of Holy Communion.
    I think this isn't because of the order of reception of sacraments; I think it's a symptom of a much wider and deeper change in the way people relate to the Church.
    Let's make full membership of the Church for grown-ups only (and let all members of the Church be treated that way, too)!

    Posted By: Joan Seymour Albion, Vic.

14. We had 42 families involved in our Sacramental program in 2010. All families met in home groups and prepared their own children. They participated in Confirmation followed by Eucharist and the children were all around 8 years of age. They were supported but not taught by the Church. A lot were non practising Catholics.
    On completion of their initiation, 3 people involved in the Sacraments who were not Catholics approached me to discuss becoming a part of our Church. I consider this a positive result.
    I highly recommend Broken Bay for Sacramental information. The program is designed to evangelise to parents as much as it is to the children. We need to trust in the Spirit, keep the faith and pray.

    Posted By: Sharon, Forster NSW

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