Thank you in advance for your great work. Question about Confirmation sponsor.
Cannon 893 §1 – A person who would undertake the office of sponsor must fulfill the conditions mentioned in 874.
Canon 874 – That states that it not be the parent of the candidate.
The Rite of Confirmation introduction #5 says a parent can present. Then are they a sponsor? What is the difference?Can you clarify?
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You are looking at the old translation of the Rite of Confirmation. That sentence from #5 has been removed.
The question came up at an ICEL meeting when the bishops were reviewing the translation, and the sentence was still in there. One of the bishops argued that after the first publication of the rite, the 1983 code of canon law changed this, and the new translation had to reflect that.
Indeed, in 1983 the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued several changes to the post-Vatican II liturgical books to align them with the revised code of law. That statement instructed that the sentence pertaining to parents in the Order of Confirmation be struck.
That is indeed what has happened now in English. However, even in the former translation, it said that parents could present the child, but it never said that parents thus became the sponsor. In effect, there was no sponsor. There were just parents. It’s all water under the bridge now.