I attended a first communion and confirmation at my local church a couple of weeks ago. If there is a crisis in the church, I think this event could explain a lot of it. I discovered a lot of what is wrong with how Christianity is portrayed to children and families.
I will say the sacraments were conducted in a very childish way. First of all, there was no seriousness in the congregation. People were acting the same as they would at a child's recital. They were talking, laughing, and everyone was commenting on how cute all the children were.
Then the actual event began. First, two girls came out dressed in ballet outfits and did some sort of interpretive dance. No one knew what was going on and it had nothing to do with Christianity. After this, the confirmation children began singing a silly and childish song which included a lot of sign-language-type gestures for rainbows, unicorns, and other things.
To an outside observer, the ceremony could have easily been a school play for pre-schoolers or some form of dance recital. It had nothing to do with Christianity. The entire atmosphere was very egocentric. Look at us perform! The children are not to blame, they were being manipulated. Those to blame are the organizers.
Encouraging the charade and making it much worse were the parents and families. Most weren't paying any attention to the Mass or sacraments whatsoever. They were talking, laughing, talking about their children, etc. No spirituality whatsoever. Just something "fun" to do on the weekend.
The problem with all of this is that it presents Christianity as something childish and silly, something like Sesame Street. The lapsed Catholic parents obviously didn't think what was going on was a big deal. Jesus is just a buddy or chum for children to make them feel better when they get scared at night.
But Christianity is meant to be for the real world, for the worst tragedies in life. Christianity is meant to give us peace and joy and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not a children's cartoon on Saturday morning. But that's what children and their families are being presented with and that's why people stop going to Mass when they reach 12 years old.
