Doubts

Queries
Father Richard Barrett answers readers' questions
Is confirmation required for marriage in the Catholic Church?
IN A STATELY HOME in Rutland there is a painting by Nicholas Poussin of a small child receiving confirmation from an early Christian bishop, possibly an apostle. It was painted at a time when there was little controversy about the right age for confirmation. Since then, just about every aspect of the rite of confirmation has come under scrutiny; its theology, its liturgical expression and its canonical application. Such was the cloud of questions that surrounded this sacrament that many commentators began and finished their lectures on the subject by saying that it was "a sacrament in search of a theology".
Many were divided about the right age to receive it: liturgists felt it was connected to baptism and so should be received as close to the baptism as possible, while catechists felt it would make an ideal rite of passage for adolescents, so that it should be received at around 16.
In this fray, the casualties were the people who had not received it by the time they approached the parish priest for marriage and found that in some territories it was an absolute requirement for Catholics who wished to marry. Somehow they had forgotten to make sure they'd received it at the right time.
Canon 1065 § 1 states: "Catholics who have not yet received the sacrament of confirmation are to receive it before being admitted to marriage; if this can be done without grave inconvenience." The extraordinary thing about this canon is that it is almost a word-for-word repetition of the canon that went before it in the 1917 code (canon 1021 § 2). The discipline hasn't therefore changed. In some countries, failure to produce a valid confirmation certificate will result in the marriage date being postponed until the Catholic party has been confirmed.
There is a theological reason for insisting on confirmation before marriage. Confirmation marks the inception point of the lay vocation, strictly speaking, when one is committed to offering a witness to Christ in the world. Besides this reason there is another: as it is one of the sacraments of initiation, no Catholic should be without its aid by the time they approach the parish priest for marriage. Thus the code of canon law envisages that it be received early in the Christian life, around the age of reason (canon 891), unless the conference of bishops has decided on another age.
In practice in this country, barring one courageous example, dioceses prefer to administer confirmation during the last year of primary school, around the age of 11. Confirmation remains the neglected sacrament of the sacraments of initiation and has been called the Cinderella of the three. What it needs is a prince bishop who will slip it neatly into the rest of the programme like the glass slipper from the fairytale —only then will sacramentologists have a ball!
Where does it say in Church law that a parish priest can refuse first holy communion to a child of Catholic parents on the grounds that the child is not ready? Surely this is a matter for the teachers and parents of a school?
IT IS COMMONLY assumed that the Catholic school is the best place for preparing children for first confession and first holy communion and that the best people to decide on their fitness for the sacraments are the teachers. Catholic education is about sacraments, after all, it is thought, and the school effectively takes the place of the parent and the parish priest. Teachers, then, are professional people employed in loco parentis.
Some priests like this situation and adopt a policy of voluntary absenteeism. For them, the teacher is competent enough to run a sacramental programme and acts in loco sacerdotis. Others,
who do make an input into the school, feel that they are adopted in some way by the school and that by rights the teacher does not have a real justification for being there when they visit to speak to the children.
There are problems with both approaches. The Catholic school is an institution that is the creation of a partnership between the parental community, the parish and the state (canon 799). From the point of Church law, the state has an obligation to provide education adapted to the consciences of parents and this is why Catholic schools exist — to provide a service to the faithful (canon 800). These schools should offer Catholic education, a mixture of academic excellence and religion, that will prepare the children for adult' life as active members of the Christian faithful (canon 806 § 2). The formation received in a Catholic school must be based on Catholic doctrine (canon 803 § 2) and the authority of the bishop is involved to ensure that this is the case throughout an inspectorate (canon 806 § 1). The duty of oversight of the sacramental programmes, however, belongs to the parish priest and his assistants, for catechesis and sacramental formation are quite distinct from Catholic education. They are not therefore subjects of the episcopal inspection team mentioned obliquely in canon 806.
Canon 914 states: "It is primarily the duty of parents and of those who take their place, as it is the duty of the parish priest, to ensure that children who have reached the age of reason are properly prepared and, having made their sacramental confession, are nourished by this divine food (the Eucharist) as soon as possible. It is also the duty of the parish priest to see that children who have not reached the age of reason, or whom he has judged to be insufficiently disposed, do not come to holy communion."
Parents and guardians, then, have a duty to see to it that the children are properly prepared, i.e. this could be specified by the parish priest as having a knowledge of certain prayers and a basic knowledge of the Mass, and as having a basic level of the practice of the faith. The judgement about the sufficiency of this preparation in order to receive holy communion always belongs to the parish priest, and not necessarily to parents and teachers. The Church law is designed to protect both the oversight of the sacrament entrusted to the parish priest and spiritual rights of children that are granted independently of adults.