Word: rite
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Christian rituals, few are subject to more varied interpretation than confirmation. For Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, it is one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ; for Protestants it is a church-created rite signifying the recipient's mature acceptance of faith. Despite the differences, both Catholics and Protestants are currently giving new thought to the meaning of confirmation-and to the age at which it should take place...
...before the candidate is ready to exercise his lay priesthood in the world." At the same time, Sheen wants to inaugurate a new and so far unnamed ceremony for young Catholics at the age of 13, in the form of "a renewal of baptismal vows." The purpose of this rite would be to emphasize the importance of puberty. Though other religions have such rites, said Sheen, "the Catholic Church has no ceremony like the bar mitzvah of the Jews...
...Balm. Sheen's proposal points up a growing debate within the Catholic Church itself over the significance of confirmation. The traditional view is that the rite, intimately related to the sacrament of baptism, marks a child's spiritual entry into the body of the church, and therefore should take place at an early age. Some bishops and theologians agree with Sheen that it makes more pastoral sense to administer the sacrament only when the confirmant is old enough to understand his commitment. The words and acts of the ritual tend to support this view: when the bishop anoints...
Signifying Maturity. In other Protestant churches the rite has somewhat less significance. In the United Church of Christ liturgy, confirmation indicates that a person is "accepted into full church membership." Methodists have a simple "order for confirmation and reception into the church," carried out by the minister by the laying on of hands...
...just shaking hands. Every social gathering or business meeting that a German attends bristles with outstretched hands, and a foreigner stumbling into a roomful of Germans can be practically disabled by the unaccustomed exercise of pressing palms if he has not previously prepared himself for the Teutonic rite. In fact, one of the first social lessons the newcomer to Germany must learn is: if it moves, shake...