"After study, consultation, and prayer, I have decided that the age for the Sacrament of Confirmation for children in the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee will be moved to an earlier age. Beginning in 2025, we will be moving gradually and methodically toward a "restored order" of the Sacraments of Initiation that will be completed in 2028. Practically speaking, this means that children, around the age of discretion (7), will receive the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist (First Communion) at the same Mass when properly catechized and disposed." - Most Rev. William A. Wack, CSC

What is restored Order?

For many Catholics in the United States over recent decades, reception of the sacraments of initiation has commonly occurred in the following manner: Baptism at a very early age, then First Holy Communion around the age of 7 or 8, then finally Confirmation later in adolescence. This practice of receiving the Eucharist prior to Confirmation is technically a distortion of the proper order of Christian Initiation as seen in Scripture and the practice of the early Church. 

For a variety of historical and pastoral reasons, Confirmation and reception of Holy Communion began to occur later in the lives of Catholic children in many parts of the world. During the first decade of the 20th century, Pope St. Pius X sought to reverse course on this gradual drift by exhorting pastors across the globe to allow children as young as 7 or 8 to receive Holy Communion. At the same time he did not specifically address Confirmation and as a result many dioceses continued to delay that sacrament until late adolescence, several years after children had received their First Holy Communion.

What is THE Purpose of Confirmation?

1290 In the first centuries Confirmation generally comprised one single celebration with Baptism, forming with it a "double sacrament," according to the expression of St. Cyprian. Among other reasons, the multiplication of infant baptisms all through the year, the increase of rural parishes, and the growth of dioceses often prevented the bishop from being present at all baptismal celebrations. In the West the desire to reserve the completion of Baptism to the bishop caused the temporal separation of the two sacraments...

1291 A custom of the Roman Church facilitated the development of the Western practice: a double anointing with sacred chrism after Baptism. the first anointing of the neophyte on coming out of the baptismal bath was performed by the priest; it was completed by a second anointing on the forehead of the newly baptized by the bishop. The first anointing with sacred chrism, by the priest, has remained attached to the baptismal rite; it signifies the participation of the one baptized in the prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices of Christ. If Baptism is conferred on an adult, there is only one post-baptismal anointing, that of Confirmation.

1304 Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the "character," which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness.

1305 This "character" perfects the common priesthood of the faithful, received in Baptism, and "the confirmed person receives the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially (quasi ex officio)."