Confirmation Demilitarized

Confirmation, in the Roman Catholic Church, is the sacrament that marks the young Catholic's entry into the adult church, a kind of personal Pentecost in which he gathers strength from the Holy Spirit to become a mature Christian. Usually administered to youngsters between the age of seven and their early teens, the sacrament is meant to reaffirm their baptismal commitment, and is generally conferred personally by a bishop.

For centuries, the form has been the same: an application of the holy oils (chrism) on the recipient's forehead and the words "I mark you with the sign of the cross and I confirm you with the chrism of salvation in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit." The bishop also delivered a slight blow to the cheek, an adaptation of the symbolic sword stroke of medieval knighting ceremonies that meant the recipient was now a "soldier of Christ," ready to die for his faith.

The soldier days are over. Last week Pope Paul VI announced a new rite of confirmation that, among other changes, abolishes the symbolic blow on the cheek, apparently because of its military implication. The new words revert to a 4th century Byzantine formula, still used by most Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches, that emphasizes the Holy Spirit. The bishop will simply say, "Receive the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit," or some similar translation from the prescribed Latin: Accipe signaculum doni Spiritus Sancti. As for the holy oils, they will now be perfumed, said a Vatican spokesman, as a reminder that Christians are "the good scent of Christ everywhere."

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