Q: We have a 15-year old preparing for confirmation. He’s been going to confession and communion since about the age of 9. We just learned that he was baptized in a Lutheran Church, but his parents became practicing Catholics after that, and they simply enrolled him in sacrament preparation when he was younger.
What do we do now? Do we celebrate the Rite of Reception into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church with him and wait for him to be confirmed with his peers?
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A: No. If a priest receives someone into the full communion of the Catholic Church, he is obliged to confirm in the same ceremony. In this case, I would ask the parents to send a letter indicating that it was their intention 9 years ago for their son to be considered a Catholic, and they had him prepared for first confession and first communion accordingly. Then I would put a note in the parish baptismal record book that the child became a Catholic at his first communion, and assign the date as closely as possible. He can then be confirmed with his catechetical group.