The question is, what happens when a child is older than 7 but younger than 14 and they wish to join the Catholic Church (or whatever the correct terminology is)?
It is surprisingly difficult to find any information whatsoever about this, but after a substantial amount of searching...
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster (the London area) has a webpage on “children of catechical age coming forward to be received into the Church in our Diocese”.
The number of children of catechetical age coming forward to be received into the Church in our Diocese grows each year. The initiation process for such children is sometimes misunderstood as a 'catching up' with the sacraments, rather than a...
rcdow.org.uk
“Catechical age” is defined elsewhere on the diocese website as “7-14 years of age”.
The page on “children of catechical age [i.e., age 7-14] coming forward to be received into the Church in our Diocese” includes a link to a website called “Team Initiation”.
“Team Initiation” is an American website, but I suppose if the London-area Catholic Church is linking to it, they believe most of the information is also applicable to England.
“Team Initiation” has an FAQ page.
teaminitiation.com
One of the Q&As there is:
“
When baptized, non-Catholic children are received into full communion, are they confirmed at the same time?
Yes.
In Paul Turner’s, When Other Christians Become Catholic, he cites Canon 885.2, which says:
A presbyter who has this faculty [the faculty to receive non-Catholics into full communion and confirm them] must use it for those in whose favor the faculty was granted.
Turner then goes on to say:
Consequently, if a priest is receiving a baptized child into the Catholic Church through the rite of reception, he must confirm the child as well. This should win ready approval from the parties involved because the child will benefit from the gifts of the Spirit at a very early age.”
So my best guess is that, as
@Somebody and
@Princess_Eleanor believed, baptized non-Catholic children who are age 7-14 and wish to become Catholic are indeed asked to wait to formally join the Catholic Church until they are mature enough to be confirmed (so about 14 by the English church’s standards). However, I have not found a source that completely clarifies this.
The two older children presumably made their own decisions to be confirmed in the Catholic church, and Amelia presumably decided otherwise.
Do we know what Lady Amelia decided, or is it simply assumed that she remained Anglican because there was no media coverage of a Catholic confirmation for her?
)
