Wow!! Good for Bishop Aquila. Here in the Diocese of Des Moines (Iowa) our bishop wants to RAISE the age for confirmation from eighth grade to tenth grade.
We just recently joined a new FSSP parish in Omaha and will have our boys confirmed through them instead of waiting another 2+ years.
I’m of the opinion that kids NEED those graces, especially the way the world is right now.
Changing confirmation would in my opinion, make it sacramentally meaningless. Confirmation Despite what the bishop thinks is intended as a rite of passage into spiritual adulthood. It is a renewal of the Baptismal vows at a time when we are mature enough to accept them and charge them against our own consciences.
It is similar to, and therefore administered at roughly the same time as, the Jewish rite or Bar/Bat Mitzvah-because it signifies the same thing-that as of that day forward I am a man/woman choosing of my own free will to be a full member of the Church (many protestant adult “baptisms” are really the same thing we would consider confirmation)
The idea that Confirmation is the only, or even primary way that a believer receives the gifts of the holy spirit is completely erroneous.
In the 70’s my parents were involved in the Charismatic movement within Catholicism and as such I was “baptized in the holy spirit” at around age 8-9 and actively using the Spirit’s gifts shortly thereafter