Pope: ‘I’m less strict than I used to be’
Benedict XVI says priests should give benefit of doubt to children preparing for sacraments
By Anna Arco
15 August 2008

Pope Benedict greets the crowd during the Sunday Angelus prayer in Bressanone (Photo: PA)

Benedict XVI has said that he was once "more severe" than he is today regarding First Holy Communion and confirmation for children who are unlikely to attend Sunday Mass after they receive the sacraments.

In a revealing response to a question from a parish priest, the Pope said that as a young man he had refused to administer the sacraments to candidates who he did not believe would practise the faith.

But he said he now believes that where there is even "a flicker of desire for communion in the faith" the sacraments should be administered.

Fr Paolo Rizzi was the last of six priests to speak during a question-and-answer session at Bressanone-Brixen in northern Italy on August 6.

He said: "More and more the children and young people who receive these sacraments prepare themselves well during catechetical sessions, but then don't come to Sunday Mass.

"It's natural to ask what sense this makes. Sometimes there's a desire to say: 'Just stay home for all of it!' Instead, however, we go on like always and accept them, thinking that in any case it's better not to snuff out the wick of a weak flame."

He then asked Benedict XVI for pastoral advice on the matter. The Pope began his reply by saying that he wasn't able to give an infallible answer to the dilemma.

He said:_"When I was young I was rather more severe. I said: 'The sacraments are the sacraments of the faith and when the faith isn't there, where there's not a practice of faith, the sacraments can't be conferred.'

"When I was Archbishop of Munich I always discussed this with my pastors, and there too there were two factions, one severe and one more generous. I, too, in the course of time, have realised that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, who was also very open with the people who were at the margins of Israel at that time.

"He was a Lord of mercy, too open, according to many official authorities, with sinners, welcoming them or allowing himself to be welcomed by them at their dinners, drawing them to himself in his communion."

The Holy Father explained that the sacraments "are naturally sacraments of faith".

"Where there is no element of faith," he said, "where First Communion would just be a party with a big lunch, nice clothes and nice gifts, then it can't be a sacrament of faith.

"But on the other hand, if we can see even a tiny flame of desire for communion in the church, a desire also from these children who want to enter into communion with Jesus, it seems right to be rather generous."

The Pope said that catechists should make sure that First Holy Communion and confirmation are not understood as automatic but that they require a "continuity of friendship with Jesus".

He said: "I know that children often have the intention and desire to go to Sunday Mass, but their parents don't make it possible. If we see that the children want it, that they have the desire to go, it seems to me almost a sacrament of desire, the 'vow' of participation at Sunday Mass. In this sense we naturally should do everything possible in the context of sacramental preparation to also reach the parents and, let's say, to also awake in them a sensibility for the path that their children are taking.

"They should help their children to follow their own desire to enter into a friendship with Jesus, which is the form of life of the future.

"If the parents have the desire that their children should make the First Communion, this somewhat social desire should be expanded into a religious desire to make a journey with Jesus possible." Catechesis should also be used as an opportunity to engage with parents, the Pope said.

"It's an occasion for meeting the parents, making the life of faith present also to the adults so that they themselves can learn anew from the children - it seems to me - and to understand that this great solemnity makes sense and is true and authentic only if it's realised in the context of a journey with Jesus in the context of a life of faith."

He added: "The challenge is to convince the parents a bit through the children of the necessity of a preparatory path which reveals itself in participation in the mysteries and begins to foster love for those mysteries."