Infant Communion - Catholicism

Catholicism

The practice of allowing infants and children to receive communion has fallen into disfavor in the Latin-Rite of the Catholic Church. Latin-Rite Catholics generally refrain from infant communion and instead have a special ceremony when the child receives his or her First Communion, usually around the age of seven or eight years old. This is in accordance with the Code of Canon Law (followed in the Roman Rite), which states:

The administration of the Most Holy Eucharist to children requires that they have sufficient knowledge and careful preparation so that they understand the mystery of Christ according to their capacity and are able to receive the body of Christ with faith and devotion. (Canon 913)

The reason given for the non-necessity of infant communion was articulated by the Council of Trent:

"The same holy council teaches that little children who have not attained the use of reason are not by any necessity bound to the sacramental communion of the Eucharist; for having been regenerated by the laver of baptism and thereby incorporated with Christ, they cannot at that age lose the grace of the sons of God already acquired. Antiquity is not therefore to be condemned, however, if in some places it at one time observed that custom. For just as those most holy Fathers had acceptable ground for what they did under the circumstances, so it is certainly to be accepted without controversy that they regarded it as not necessary to salvation." (Council of Trent, Sess. XXI, Chapter iv)

Thus, the Council declared:

"If anyone says that communion of the Eucharist is necessary for little children before they have attained the years of discretion,let him be anathema." (Council of Trent, Sess. XXI, can. iv)

Formerly, the Eastern Churches in full communion with the Roman Pope were generally required to conform to Western Church practice, in violation of the far more ancient practice of the Eastern Churches. However, the Second Vatican Council's decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum, although not specifically addressing infant communion, states that the Council "confirms and approves the ancient discipline of the sacraments existing in the Oriental Churches, as also the ritual practices connected with their celebration and administration and ardently desires that this should be re-established if circumstances warrant it" (Section 12).

This has led some of these Churches to restore the ancient practice of permitting infant communion.

The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (followed by the Eastern Catholic Churches) permits infant communion: "With respect to the participation of infants in the Divine Eucharist after baptism and chrismation with holy myron, the prescriptions of the liturgical books of each Church sui iuris are to be observed with the suitable due precautions." (Canon 710)

For details on infant communion in the Eastern Catholic Churches, see the next section on the Eastern Orthodoxy.