Q: Our diocese will be moving toward Restored Order within the next three years. That means that our children will celebrate confirmation before they receive first communion.
Have you ever documented a brief history of this practice in any of your writings? Do you have a document that you might easily direct me toward?
I am very grateful for this help! I hope you are well and gratefully receive your blog entries now.
A: Be assured of my prayers as your diocese moves to a new order of Christian initiation.
This book should be helpful: Ages of Initiation. The book is fairly brief, but the CD has an enormous amount of documentation that you really won’t need. However, the book does summarize the history.
I’ve summarized and reframed some of the material here: Guide for Celebrating Confirmation.
Also in this talk: The Reforms of Confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church.
I also wrote the article on confirmation in the second edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia.
You might also learn from a diocese that has been doing this for a while:
https://brisbanecatholic.org.au/life/confirmation/ .
Blessings on you all.