What Age for Christian Soldiers?

Of all of the Christian rituals, few are subject to more varied interpretation than confirmation. For Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, it is one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ; for Protestants it is a church-created rite signifying the recipient's mature acceptance of faith. Despite the differences, both Catholics and Protestants are currently giving new thought to the meaning of confirmation--and to the age at which it should take place.

Last week the Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, the vigorous new Catholic bishop of Rochester, N.Y. (TIME, Feb. 10), startled his flock by announcing that the confirmation age in his diocese would be raised to that of normal high school graduation; in Rochester, as in most other U.S. Catholic dioceses, children have traditionally been confirmed between the ages of nine and twelve. Explaining the change, Sheen declared: "At present, bishops are asked to confirm tots and send them out as soldiers of Christ. Confirmation should not be administered generally before the candidate is ready to exercise his lay priesthood in the world." At the same time, Sheen wants to inaugurate a new and so far unnamed ceremony for young Catholics at the age of 13, in the form of "a renewal of baptismal vows." The purpose of this rite would be to emphasize the importance of puberty. Though other religions have such rites, said Sheen, "the Catholic Church has no ceremony like the bar mitzvah of the Jews."

Oil & Balm. Sheen's proposal points up a growing debate within the Catholic Church itself over the significance of confirmation. The traditional view is that the rite, intimately related to the sacrament of baptism, marks a child's spiritual entry into the body of the church, and therefore should take place at an early age. Some bishops and theologians agree with Sheen that it makes more pastoral sense to administer the sacrament only when the confirmant is old enough to understand his commitment. The words and acts of the ritual tend to support this view: when the bishop anoints the forehead with chrism, a mixture of olive oil and balm, he also administers a ceremonial slap on the cheek to remind him that he must be ready to suffer for his faith.

Reformation leaders rejected the traditional opinion that confirmation was a Christ-founded sacrament of the same importance as baptism or Holy Communion; but many churches have preserved the ritual as a way of sanctifying religious instruction and symbolizing full entry into the church. In the Anglican Communion, where the customary age for receiving confirmation is twelve, the bishop first questions the youth on his knowledge of the faith, then lays on hands as a sign of the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Among Lutherans, the usual age is 13 or 14, and as with Episcopalians, confirmation is a requirement for admission to Communion.

Signifying Maturity. In other Protestant churches the rite has somewhat less significance. In the United Church of Christ liturgy, confirmation indicates that a person is "accepted into full church membership." Methodists have a simple "order for confirmation and reception into the church," carried out by the minister by the laying on of hands.

Like the Catholics, some Protestant churches are rethinking the proper age for confirmation. A nationwide commission of 18 Lutheran scholars has been studying the question for more than four years, and a spokesman for the Lutheran Church in America says "there has been some agitation for lowering the age for Communion and raising the age for confirmation." The United Church, which confirms youngsters at twelve or 13, is expected to recommend to its congregations next year that the rite be administered at 14 or 15. At issue, in brief, is whether it makes sense that a ceremony signifying Christian maturity should take place before the believer fully understands his faith and his commitments.

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