Children today are maturing so quickly that it might be time to consider allowing them to receive their first Holy Communion even before their seventh birthdays, the head of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments has said.
"A child's first Communion is like the beginning of a journey with Jesus, in communion with him: the beginning of a friendship destined to last and to grow for his entire life," wrote Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera.
Today, he said, "children live immersed in a thousand difficulties, surrounded by a difficult environment that does not encourage them to be what God wants them to be".
