Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle normally examines particular issues thoroughly, at length, using the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church.  By contrast, our feature CC in Brief, usually gives an extremely short answer to a reader’s question.  We invite every reader to submit his own questions.

CC in Brief

Sponsors for Conditional Confirmation

Q.        Do we need a sponsor in the case of conditional Confirmation?  Is there a place in the Code of Canon law or in the Church rubrics that supports that we need a sponsor for conditional Confirmation?

A.        We checked the old Code of Canon Law which, although it is no longer binding, seems to us prudent to consult and prudent to follow.  We also checked three commentaries on this code[1] and we also checked the new code (while holding our noses),  Lastly, we consulted the book The Externals of the Catholic Church by Fr. John Sullivan.[2]

The old code contains several canons about sponsors but no special provisions about sponsors for conditional Confirmation. 

A sponsor for Confirmation is not required for validity at any time[3] but the old code notes that Confirmation sponsors were used from the oldest times and should be used.  Proxy sponsors may be used. 

A conditional Confirmation is administered because the prior one might be invalid.  For this reason, the conditional Confirmation might be the valid one.  Thus, you should have a sponsor for the conditional Confirmation since it is important that the confirmandus would have a sponsor in the event that the conditional Confirmation turns out to have been the valid one.  But again, it can be by proxy.

Lastly, we note that we are aware of no uncompromising and valid bishops available to us at the present time (Summer 2024).  If you have access to such a bishop, we would greatly want to know about it so we could contact him ourselves and also inform people far and wide about him.