In your answer to this question, you wrote: "First Confession must precede First Communion at the age of reason, 7ish. This law has been widely violated and its violation continuously condemned by the Popes as a violation of the child's rights."

It is incorrect to say that this has been condemned by Popes as a violation of Liturgical Law in the Catholic Church.

While this may be the case in the Western Church, the Eastern Church (Catholic and Orthodox) has always taught that all three Mysteries (Sacraments) of Initiation be given to the newly baptized, including infants.

The three Mysteries are given in this order, all during the same celebration during the Divine Liturgy: Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation), and first Eucharist.

The theology of the East is that every member of the Church is a full member, and is entitled to participate in the Eucharist, regardless of age, so long as one is not in the state of serious sin. After all, there is no more innocent a person to receive the spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist as an infant or a child.

As the child begins his/her Eastern Christian Formation (catechism), one of the first things which is taught are the true presence and meaning of the Eucharist.

Even one of the local Western priests respects this Eastern practice, and allows my niece to receive when it is necessary for her to attend a Liturgy at that particular parish.

I believe that this respect allows the Church to "breathe with both lungs" as Pope John Paul II so vehemently spoke and wrote.

Thank you.

The context of the question was a child of the age of reason, theoretically capable of mortal sin, as he or she is of recognizing the Body of Christ, but denied the opportunity for the absolution and consolation of the Sacraments of Penance. This context, for Eastern and Western Catholics alike, is fundamentally different from that of a newly baptized infant, who is absolutely and certainly free of the guilt of personal sin and not yet capable of commiting it.

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