Ireland’s traditional Confirmation Pledge has been updated to include vaping and cigarette smoking. The pledge, traditionally taken at the time of Confirmation, has long seen young people promise not to drink alcohol until the age of eighteen. However, it will now also include the pledge takes asking God for help “not to use drugs, vapes, cigarettes, or anything that could harm my body or mind.”
The rewording was announced as part of Temperance Sunday, the final Sunday before Lent, when the Church in Ireland marks a day of prayer encouraging Catholics to reflect on their relationship with drugs and all substances or behaviours that can diminish human dignity and freedom.
The pledge finds its origins in the temperance movement of Fr Theobald Mathew, an Irish friar who founded the Knights of Father Mathew, which promoted complete abstinence from alcohol. Fr Mathew travelled around Ireland, England and the United States, and it is estimated that seven million people took a pledge to abstain from alcohol under his influence. The temperance movement is widely associated with a significant reduction in crime and with improving the lives of the poor by removing the pernicious effects of alcohol on society. At its height, it is estimated that more than half the adult population of Ireland had taken the pledge.
After the success of Fr Mathew, adherence to abstinence gradually faded. In response to increasing alcoholism, Fr James Cullen SJ founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, which encouraged temperance as a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The association encouraged young people to take a pledge not to drink alcohol until the age of 18 when they received the sacrament of Confirmation. Whilst never required by the Church, it became a popular devotion and intertwined with Irish Catholic life.
The decision to include vaping follows a significant increase in the number of young people taking up the habit. Around 18 per cent of 15–24-year-olds in Ireland vape daily or occasionally and, like other countries, there is concern that vape products are being targeted at young people, with bright colours and sweet flavours. Cigarette smoking also remains prevalent in the country, with approximately 17 per cent of the population being smokers.
Responding to the change, Auxiliary Bishop Michael Router of Armagh Archdiocese, liaison bishop with the Irish Bishops’ Drugs Initiative, said: “I warmly welcome the rewording of the Confirmation Pledge to explicitly include vaping and cigarette smoking, alongside alcohol and illicit drugs. This development reflects a thoughtful and prayerful response to the lived realities of young people today.”
