The Archdiocese of Boston has lowered the age for Catholic confirmation from 10th grade to eighth grade, to “allow more young people to receive the sacrament,” according to Cardinal Seán O’Malley.
O’Malley brought the issue to the Presbyteral Council last fall, and it made a “nearly unanimous” recommendation in December to change the age, O’Malley wrote in a letter to pastors Thursday.
O’Malley wrote that he had consulted church leaders and families on the matter over the past few years.
“The ultimate goal here is to expose the faith to Catholics and have them confirmed, receive the grace of the sacrament, and then hopefully stay with us in the church,” Bishop Mark O’Connell, vicar general for the archdiocese, said in a phone interview Saturday.
Advertisement
The median age at which congregants leave the Catholic Church is 13, said O’Connell, referencing a 2018 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. By confirming teenagers around that age, the archdiocese hopes to keep more young people engaged with the church, and for longer, said O’Connell, a member of the Presbyteral Council.
The council wondered if by continuing to confirm teenagers in 10th grade, the archdiocese was “missing a lot of people, and we could perhaps do better in teaching them the faith at an earlier age,” he said.
When O’Connell, 59, was a child in the 1970s, Catholic children could be confirmed in eighth grade, but it was changed to 10th grade around the 1980s, he said.
“For me, it’s going back to what it used to be,” O’Connell said.
Parishes will implement the new policy over the next two to three years, as they need time to prepare the classes for an earlier confirmation, he said.
“We need now to concentrate on building good high school programs, because we still want to keep our high school students in activities, but there won’t be as much classroom stuff as service projects, activities, faith-sharing — that kind of stuff,” O’Connell said.
Advertisement
O’Malley wrote in his letter that it is heartening to see the interest in increasing the participation of young people in the church.
“I think that Cardinal Sean [O’Malley] is excited that we’ll be having more students,” O’Connell said. “This is the church listening to the people, being synodal.”
Bailey Allen can be reached at bailey.allen@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @baileyaallen.