Opting out of Holy Communion in a rural catholic school

[CucumberAndMint]

Thinking we will make the decision not to go through with Holy communion for our DC.

DC1 due next May. Date chosen already so bouncy castles and hair appointments can be booked!

Our main concerns are fallout and feelings of exclusion. DH family not bothered. Mine fairly horrified.

We are happy with the school and will take dc on holiday around the time of event.

Has anyone done this and how did he deal with it?

Early communion is very unchristian. In early Christianity baptism was only permitted to adults. But due to concerns over the souls of children who died baptism was allowed to the young, even still borns. The purpose of first communion is to give adults the choice to follow the oath of Christianity effectively replacing previous baptism traditions. Rather cynically the Catholic Church brought the age of first communion forward in the hopes of better retentions because children that age would be more likely to just do what they were told or to do it because everyone else was. If anyone asks just say that first communion is of great spiritual significance not just a tradition or right if passage.

*path. Not oath

I'm not Catholic but am religious. fair play to you OP for opting out. If you don't believe then going through with this sacrament makes a mockery of the whole thing.

Presume the secondary school does Confirmation if it's a Catholic secondary. She won't need involvement with that if she hasn't made her FHC. I'm in UK so don't really know the Irish education system. I went to Catholic schools here - my late mum was Irish.

Confirmation is usually done in primary school in Ireland-in 6th class or 5th and 6th together in some areas.

My family we upset. Tears etc. Worried what people will think.

Oh for the love of all that's divine. Worried what people will think in 2018? Well done you for holding your ground OP.

I'm Irish, DH is British, both raised Catholic but the DC were baptised Anglican which is where we now go. The number of comments I had from people in Ireland saying "Aren't you brave?!" was amazing - and that was in Dublin, where I'm from an area that has eleventy million non Catholic options. I myself went to the first ever ET school in the dark ages.

although there is a very very small part of me that feels a bit funny about the girls not getting their day. But only a very small part

It does make me laugh that people feel so virtuous and Catholic rocking up to church for baptisms, communions, confirmations and weddings and never in between.

Our decision is made and we are sticking with it. Wish us luck!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply.

Good luck, op. And I hope you get less aggro than you anticipate.

Hi.
Our children go to the local rural catholic school and are opted out. Every class in the school has children who have opted out. It’s definitely becoming more and more common. I believe it will become the norm.

I think but am not 100% sure that if you want to married in a Catholic Church and were baptised you have to show proof of Confirmation.
My dn was getting married in a Catholic Church in Italy and ran into problems.
I wasn't at the wedding so not sure how it panned out as there was a family rift.

DH has a friend who chose not to take part in First Communion. They were a bit worried their DD missing out on the Big Day, so organised a small family party were she got made a fuss of and she got to pick a family outing that they could do together- kind of like a mini-coming-of-age.

Wouldn’t normally advocate hosting a party for no particular reason, but it worked really well in the circumstances!

We never had any fuss with it or castles or anything - you just buy the dress and turn up and have a photo taken.

Eloise first holy communion is different from confirmation. Confirmation is a sacrament and is done in early teens. Fhc as a pp said was added on in a cynical attempt to get more people to join the church. My DS went to a Catholic school and didn't have his communion. He really didn't want to do it even though all his friends did it and got loads of money and parties etc. My first confession was taken by a priest who was happily abusing boys while he was telling 7 year olds to say 10 Hail Mary's for the grave sin of being mean to their brothers so I didn't push it. Now though, I feel he should know about Catholicism, just because half his family (my half) are Catholic. I don't know why and I don't care if he doesn't want to do religion when he's older. I want him to have some knowledge of it though.

El, yes but they do confirmation a bit later. My 5 have all done both. But no money, parties etc. I didn't even know people gave money rather than a holy picture and some rosary beads. We obviously all missed out there big time!

Xenia, are you in Ireland?

It’s very much a big deal here- the kids go through it together in their primary school classes, limos are hired, expensive dresses, hair and make up are bought for some etc.

OP is right to get ahead of this.

England (and the parish does it - no big deal and nor was mine). Wow limos and expensive dresses - hardly very religious is it? I thought finding a handed down white dress was supposed to be the hardest task as well as the religious side of it. It sounds like Christmas gone mad - loads of presents but no Christ.

Well that makes a refreshing change, not sneering at the Irish for being Catholic just for being wrongly Catholic.

I did hear a discussion on the radio that it might be better to remove the communion preparation from the schools so that the families have to make an effort to arrange the classes. The thinking was that it's easier to go with the flow at the moment and so the religious side is being lost (exactly like Christmas in fact). If people have to make a conscious decision then it's likely that the less devout (party-goers) will not go through with it.

I so wish we were like the English system where you had specified religious schools rather than the supposed Catholic schools here which have to accommodate everybody. At least that way, children could go to school and be able to participate fully in every aspect of school life, whether that was Catholic, Church of Ireland, Muslim, non-denominational, Educate together or whatever. However, I can’t see it happening-far too expensive to put enough varieties of school in place throughout the country!

BlackA, I am Catholic because I had Irish relatives in the 1800s. I have nothing against the irish at all. I just didn't realise that a lot of money was spent on something religious. I am not even sure if that is the irish history actually. It sounds like school prom thing in the UK where state schools only in the last 20 years have started something new that never used to happen. I think in England children in Catholic schools sometimes do make it in the Parish, instead of through their Catholic school.

I just noticed the Talk heading - hadn't realised I was on an Irish board, not that it matters. I was tracking one side of my relatives down jut through one line - mothers ( as we are at least 7 generations oldest girl of oldest girl now which is quite interesting) but got stuck in the 1800s on all sides England and Irish as i think we were just about all so badly off there are few records of anything.

I'm non-catholic, DH is non-practising catholic (you can imagine our DGP reactions when we were choosing a church for our wedding )

DS was baptised non-catholic but does go to a catholic school. So it wasn't a case of opting out for us simply he wasn't doing it as he's not baptised catholic.

We live semi rurally and he was the only one in his class not having first holy communion.

No issues, no one batted an eyelid.

I wonder if the French tradition, at least in the 70/80s of children wearing this for their fhc was in reaction to the ‘too fancy’ brigade

Big money spent by Polish people too. Big financial commitment for godparents. Also heard of celebrations for the anniversary of FHC.

Dc and school told and all well so far.

I do think the tide is changing all be it slowly. If people choose to go ahead it should be first and foremost because they are devout Catholics.

I've read somewhere the girls dresses were originally to support the lace making in the laundries.

It is a lot of pressure on parents that are struggling financially to keep up with class mates or provide the FHC they feel their child needs!

As regards marriage in the church if they really want to when older it will be their choice and we will fully support and facilitate this.

I've gathered that in several countries, the age of Catholic first communion and of confirmation has been raised in recent years; where my mother lives - not UK - she told me it has actively been moved out of the catholic schools to become more parish based (partly I think having increasing numbers of non-catholic children in them).

Ironically, as we are very protestant Church of England, both our children have been confirmed young, age 11 and 12, but at their own choosing. Almost certainly only that early because they were choristers so exposed to much more much sooner. We got very cross at one being "admitted to communion" before confirmation age as we disagree with it on principle.

Much better to make these things about "adult", personal membership of the Church.

It was moved I think in this bit of London from school to parish based about 25 years ago I believe.

On ages I was made my first communion (at a Catholic fee paying school) at aged 6 in the 1960s at school a year before anyone else in my class and only just before the changes of Vatican II took effect. Everyone else was 7 or 8 . I don't know why my mother pushed for me to be younger. I think she just wanted to get it done or thought I knew more prayers than anyone else. Then I was just about the last to make confirmation very young - I was 7 and my sister was something like 12 as by then it had moved older.