There are many reasons to say that young people with disabilities have the right to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. It would be easier to answer with a question: why not?
But what we really need is to encourage parents to desire that their children receive the Seal of the Holy Spirit. What we need is to find deep consolation in knowing that their children are normal and unique in the eyes of the Father. All of us are his beloved children in a most particular way.
Confirmation is one of the sacraments of Christian initiation, along with Baptism, the Eucharist, and Reconciliation. Canon Law ensures that all the baptized have the right to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation. There would have to be an extraordinarily serious reason to deny our young people Confirmation—especially if they have already passed twenty years of age, their lives have stabilized in some way, and they walk a faith journey within a Christian community like Fede e Luce.
A person in imminent danger of death has the right to sacramental Reconciliation, Confirmation, the Anointing of the Sick, the Eucharist, and in certain cases even to celebrate sacramental Marriage.
Our young people, who still have their whole lives ahead of them, have an equally strong right to the sacrament of Confirmation—which strengthens them in their call to be witnesses to Jesus, builders of community, and to face life and its crosses with patience, joy, and courage.
In this sacrament, the Church declares a fuller incorporation into the ecclesial community. Can we deny this reality and this gift to young people who stand at the heart of Fede e Luce, a lay association recognized by the Church? Confirmation for these young people is also the Church's recognition of their ecclesial vocation to be living members of Fede e Luce. When the Church confirms them, she also affirms Fede e Luce in its charism of fraternity—faithful friends of Jesus and of one another.
Objections we might raise
One might object that young people do not possess the full freedom and awareness of an adult. But this reasoning risks denying them any space for freedom and responsibility whatsoever. Human freedom is, by nature, limited and wounded: ours is wounded more by sin, theirs more by illness. Here is another question: are we certain that in them—even in cases of the most severe disabilities—this freedom and awareness are completely absent? The Church, out of prudence and charity, does not deny even a glimmer of it to a person in permanent vegetative state.
Let us ask ourselves again: can we deny that young people, having already received Baptism, no longer need sacramental grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit? They already receive the Eucharist, the greatest of the sacraments, and we do not believe that is useless. But above all, let us remember that God's grace is measured by our needs more than by our freedom, capacity, or merit. All of us need the sacraments, and we are often unaware of their greatness and the good they do us. Our young people need them too, and perhaps no less than we do. It falls to us Christians—parents, parishes, Fede e Luce—who stand beside them to recognize this often unspoken need, to give it voice, and to answer this necessity.
"Let the children come to me"
For our young people, two sayings of Jesus apply in a particular way: "Let the children come to me" and "Do not scandalize the little ones."
Our young people are children whom we can keep separate from Jesus if we apply our own understanding of Confirmation as something to be earned and understood theologically—a reward for completing catechism well.
Who could ever merit the gifts of the Holy Spirit? We can barely merit the sacraments for ourselves, burdened as we are by our sins and our superficiality before God's gifts. But our young people carry fewer of these burdens, and therefore it is all the more unjust to withhold them. We risk scandalizing our little ones by indefinitely delaying the moment when Jesus gives himself to them in this gift.
Nor can we say that young people do not need Confirmation because they don't commit grave sins. But they do commit sins, perhaps lesser ones. They experience their own falls, their own regrets and guilt, and they need to be lifted up. We can see how the sacrament of Reconciliation helps them too. And so does Confirmation. It is the indelible seal with which Jesus says, I love you without end: "On your heart I brand anew, after Baptism, the sign that I am yours and you are mine."
But do they really not understand Confirmation?
Is it actually true that young people do not understand Confirmation? We adults struggle to understand it ourselves. What matters, rather, is to remember that a sacrament happens in a liturgy—it is a sacred action, not an intellectual act isolated with theological content. Confirmation is something we live through. And we have seen how young people felt the newness and significance of the moment in the liturgy itself. They grasped the seriousness and solemnity, the beauty and uniqueness of the event. In their own way they prepared themselves, and when the moment came they were ready to take in what was happening around them and within them. What is truly essential is to care for the liturgy as best we can, to prepare the young people for a personal encounter with the Spirit in the hands of the Bishop. And to prepare the Bishop for a moment so touching and meaningful, for him as well.
Confirmation for young people is also a gift for the "others"
We have the task of giving confidence to young people and their parents when we see that families need the grace of Confirmation and that the Lord desires to give himself to them. We are called to help the parish community become aware that the time has come to welcome these young people as full members of the Church. We are urged to believe that our young people have room to grow in witnessing to the mystery of Jesus crucified and risen. They are, in their very lives more than in words, an image of the Church crucified with her Spouse, awaiting the resurrection of the flesh and the full freedom of the children of God.
Confirmation for our young people is an act of faith, hope, and charity that we make. It is a way of continuing to remember that at the center of Fede e Luce stands the Lord and his brothers and sisters, not our good works and our merits. We will see the fruits of this sacrament in the renewed vitality of our communities, in the hope that Fede e Luce witnesses, and in our unconditional love for life.
Sacraments are gifts to us so that we might bear fruit for others. Confirmation for young people is a gift for the others. It is a gift that the Father gives also to parents, to friends, and to the Church. And we receive grace with humility, gratitude—and a little sweat to prepare the liturgy and help the young people live as fully as possible their lasting encounter with the Holy Spirit.
– Father Luciano Larivera, 2008 (n. 101)
