can you help with some catholic homework?

[catholicgirl]

'It is not the end of the world if you do not get confirmed'

my daughter needs to think of 3 reasons to agree with this statement and 3 reasons to disagree with this statement. Can you help? We are struggling to think of 3 on each side.

Agree:

1. You can technically already receive communion after you've been baptised, so you're not necessarily missing out by not being confirmed.
2. Confirmation is a sacrament, an outward sign of an inner grace, but it doesn't bring about the grace in its own right.
3. Plenty of Christian denominations don't practice confirmation at all, but are still part of the Church.

Disagree:

1. Confirmation is an important rite of passage and a sign that you are affirming your baptism vows for yourself.
2. Confirmation is a public declaration of faith and emphasises that you're not ashamed of your faith.
3. If you're not confirmed them you can't be a godparent.

Without confirmation you're not a full Catholic. It's the final step towards full initiation into the Catholic church.

Confirmation usually takes place at an age where young adults are still discovering the world around them and finding out who they are and what they believe. So it would be better to delay into adulthood.

Agree:

1. Someone living their baptismal grace fully will experience the grace of God more completely than someone who half-heartedly goes through with Confirmation. Since the working out of the grace is dependent on the individual's response to God, it is not absolutely necessary to be Confirmed.
2. Many people only get Confirmed to please family members. It would be more honest to delay Confirmation until one is dedicated to the faith, or at least to spend a period of time trying to deepen one's faith before Confirmation.
3. God is not limited by the sacraments. Therefore he can choose to bestow his graces on anyone regardless of what ceremonies they go though.

Disagree:

1. Confirmation completes the process of Christian initiation. It is not primarily to be understood as the young person 'confirming' the faith they were given by their parents, but as a gift of God choosing to strengthen and renew the confirmand through grace. The primary meaning of grace is an uncreated gift, i.e. God himself coming to dwell in the person and thus raising them up and divinising them. Why would anyone who was a committed member of a church with this theology (which is not all churches which practice Confirmation, but the OP specifically asked for RC) want to say no to God's free gift of grace being offered to them?
2. The gifts of the Holy Spirit given in Confirmation are necessary for salvation (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica) and should not therefore be refused when offered. Again, I'm assuming this is in the context of GCSE/A Level RE module on Catholicism. Clearly, someone who wanted to engage with other denominations' views would have to be more careful about what they meant by the term 'necessary for salvation'.
3. The strengthening of Confirmation is particularly useful for young people in the UK today, where being openly Christian can be difficult. On a human level, the catechesis which usually precedes Confirmation will help to inform and affirm the confirmand's faith; on a divine level, the young person will be better equipped to witness to the faith in a hostile environment.

Disclaimer: none of these arguments is watertight. As a theology graduate, I could argue against any of them, but they're fine for school level.