Reading in this week's issue of The Catholic Herald that the newspaper favours an earlier age for first Communion in suitable cases raises in my mind the question of the age of Confirmation. This sacrament, which completes full membership of the Church – makes us, as the Penny Catechism put it, “strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ”.

In the early Church Confirmation was administered at the same time as Baptism, and this is still the case with adult converts. But with the advent of infant baptism (a matter of controversy at the time) Confirmation was typically delayed until the age of reason.