Q: I hope you are well, and thanks, as always, for your invaluable help. Gleaning from your many writings (some of which are below), could you let me know if the following would be correct: Confirmation, on a Sunday in Advent, at 2pm, not a regularly scheduled Sunday Mass: == A: Yes, that is how I […]

Q: If during the Rite of Confirmation the celebrant (in this case a priest) forgets to use chrism, is the confirmation still valid? == A: In his apostolic constitution on the sacrament of confirmation, Pope Paul VI wrote the following: THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION IS CONFERRED THROUGH THE ANOINTING WITH CHRISM ON THE FOREHEAD, WHICH IS DONE BY THE […]

Q: First Communion has become a ‘family event’ where children sit with their families, rather than with a ‘class.’ Is there any talk of doing the same thing with confirmation? We had confirmation kids sit with their families during Covid, rather than piling into a single pew with other teens and it seemed so Catholic. […]

Q: I’m afraid I have a mundane request. I was looking online for a simple answer to the question of why children of catechetical age receive all three sacraments of initiation in one ceremony, whereas children who are born Catholic wait to be confirmed and receive Communion, and I came across your excellent article on the […]

Q: I’ll be receiving someone into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church at Mass on a Sunday in Ordinary Time. Do I wear green or red because I’m administering confirmation? == A: You wear green. RCIA 487 says that you celebrate the Mass of the day, so you take the presidential prayers, readings and […]

Q: I have Confirmation in the Parish next Sunday. Regretably the bishop cannot attend so I have delegation to confirm (which I view as an honour as much as I’d prefer the bishop to confirm). Recently, my view that candidates are for themselves now pro/claiming their Catholic faith, (a faith initially pronounced by parents/godparents), has […]

Q: Is there any indication in the books concerning the use of candles for CCD Confirmation?  == A: No. Even at the Easter Vigil, candles are relighted after confirmation. There is a connection between baptism and confirmation, but it is primarily made through the renewal of promises rather than the lighting of candles.

Q: I have a question about choosing a name for Confirmation.  Where in the RCIA does it address this? I can only find something about choosing a name for baptism and nothing about confirmation.  Last night at the Vigil, our deacon, pastor, and some on the RCIA team tried to convince me that our neophyte […]

Q:  Do priests concelebrating a confirmation Mass with the bishop extend their hands during the prayer of confirmation? == A:  It appears that I never corrected this post from 2016, when I gave the wrong answer: https://paulturner.org/handlayings-at-confirmation/ . Only priests who will confirm some of the candidates extend their hands with the bishop. If the […]

Q: In the Introduction to the Order of Confirmation, n. 11/1 says that an adult who has been baptized into the Catholic Church but has not yet received First Communion should receive both Confirmation and First Communion at the same Mass.  Does that apply to teenagers too, who have passed the age of discretion? Thank […]