Following up on last week's Reader Question about Confirmation, we have a question about the relationship between the two other Sacraments of Initiation:
My friend's son, age 6, is being baptized this Sunday. Will just being baptized allow him to participate in Communion, or does he have to complete catechism first?
This is a great question, because most Catholics know the right answer in practice, but many may not understand that it's not a requirement.
In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, a child baptized at six years old will almost always be expected to go through a First Communion catechism course before receiving Holy Communion, most likely around the age of seven. I write "almost always" because, under certain circumstances, that near-universal practice may be set aside. For instance, if the child is being baptized because he is in danger of death, the priest will almost certainly also confirm him and give him Communion at the same time.
Waiting for First Communion until a child has reached the age of reason (customarily designated as seven years old) is the current practice in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, but it's not something that is required by Church doctrine. Technically, all that's required for the reception of Communion is Baptism and being in a state of grace (as any child who has been baptized, and has not been able to fall into mortal sin, is).
That is why, as I mentioned last week, in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church the normal practice is still to baptize, confirm, and commune infants, who receive Communion from the day of their baptism on. (Most Eastern Rite children make a Solemn First Communion around the age of seven, after catechetical instruction, but by then they will have received Communion hundreds of times.)
The current practice in the Latin Rite Church could be changed in the future, though it is unlikely. More likely is the lowering of the current age of Confirmation (now around 14) and the reversing of the current order of First Communion and Confirmation. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI, in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, has suggested that the original order, still maintained in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, should be restored.
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