[Question]{.underline}: Can a parent be sponsor at his own child’s confirmation?
[Answer]{.underline}: The traditional law of the Church (1917 Code) requires that there be a sponsor for confirmation if it is at all possible (Canon 793) and that there be only one sponsor (canon 794). By these and other laws concerning sponsors the most ancient Tradition of the Church is enshrined in law. The traditional Code goes on to make a distinction that has been lost in the 1983 Code, namely of the conditions required for valid sponsorship, and those required for licit sponsorship. Amongst the conditions required for the validity of sponsorship is that the sponsor be not the father, mother, or spouse of the person to be confirmed (Canon 795). Also excluded from valid sponsorship is anyone who is not himself confirmed, who has not yet attained the age of reason, who does not have the intention of being a sponsor, who belongs to a heretical or schismatic sect, who has been declared to be excommunicated, or who has not been chosen by the confirmand, his parents, guardians, parish priest, or bishop. Consequently, if a parent, spouse, or any other of these persons attempts to be a sponsor, he is not in fact a sponsor, and no spiritual relationship arises from the confirmation.
There are excellent reasons for this determination of the Church that clearly excludes sponsorship. For a parent and a spouse it is on account of the physical relationship that exists between the two persons. This relationship does not exclude great care for the spiritual well being of the child or spouse. To the contrary, it requires it. However, the Church has always regarded the purely spiritual relationship that arises from administering baptism or sponsorship at baptism or confirmation as being incompatible with such close physical relationships. It is a relationship motivated purely by the love of souls and the love of God, but not by human family love, as perfectly legitimate as it certainly is.
The traditional code goes on to mention the other conditions for licitness that do not invalidate the sponsorship. They include the age of 13 years, the knowledge of the rudiments of the Faith, that one be of the same sex as the person to be confirmed, and different from the baptismal sponsor, and also that one be not excluded by public sin, or by being a religious or in holy orders
The 1983 Code of Canon Law lacks the clarity of the Church’s traditional law, since it makes no distinction between those who cannot validly be sponsors and those who cannot licitly be sponsors. It is said that the father and mother are not to be a sponsor (Canon 874) but makes no mention, alas, of the spouse who, then, is allowed to be a sponsor. The other conditions for licitness are not mentioned, except that the age of 16 years is now required. There is, as might be expected, no explicit exclusion of those who belong to heretical or schismatic sects but simply the statement that the baptized person who belongs to a non-Catholic community can only be used as a witness, and then together with a Catholic sponsor. This concession itself is a grave scandal in the reception of the sacrament that makes a soldier of Christ.
This ambiguity in the 1983 Code would seem to be very serious, for it would seem to bring about a doubt as to whether a spiritual relationship exists or not. However, it really makes no difference for those who follow the post-conciliar code. The truth of the matter is that for the post-conciliar church there is no such thing as a spiritual relationship that arises from sponsorship for the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. This is a much more serious and scandalous deficiency, directly contrary to the most ancient ecclesiastical tradition of the Church. For the 1983 Code in fact makes no mention at all of this spiritual relationship, either with respect to baptism or to confirmation. Yet it is upon this spiritual relationship that the obligations of sponsorship depend, as Canon 797 of the 1917 Code states: “The spiritual relationship between the confirmand and his sponsor arises from valid confirmation, and it is in virtue of this spiritual relationship that the sponsor is bound by the obligation or taking perpetual care of the confirmand and of seeing to his Catholic education.” Without the spiritual relationship, sponsorship becomes a spiritually meaningless family honor or function.
Given that the 1983 Code is on this question so gravely deficient, and so opposed to the practice of the Faith, there can be no doubt that we must reject it, and follow the traditional Code, as expressing fully and accurately the mind of the Church. A parent or spouse who attempts to be a sponsor is consequently not a sponsor at all, and does not incur a spiritual relationship with the confirmand, nor the canonical obligations that flow from it.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.