Children making their Confirmation in Ireland will be invited, from next year, to take an expanded “pledge”. As well as vowing to abstain from alcohol until adulthood, they would abstain from vaping and smoking.
The pledge has long been a rite of passage for 12- and 13-year-olds receiving the Catholic sacrament, traditionally involving a promise to abstain from alcohol and drugs.
The development forms part of Church leaders’ efforts to encourage children to make healthier lifestyle choices in their formative years.
The Irish Bishops’ Drugs and Alcohol Initiative, in partnership with the Catholic Primary School Management Association, which provides advice and support to the boards of management of over 2,800 schools, will make a new online module available to all schools whose students wish to take the updated pledge.
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The expanded pledge seeks to honour Matt Talbot who died 100 years ago last week. Talbot was first exposed to alcohol aged 12 and became a heavy drinker before quitting when he was 28 and devoting his life to spirituality. He was described as “a person of hope, faith, and charity” by Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell.
The Irish Catholic Bishops Conference said that the updated pledge “supports our young people in terms of physical and mental health, and goes some way to address the concerns of parents regarding new and harmful substances impacting the health and wellbeing of their children”.
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Chris Macey, director of advocacy with the Irish Heart Foundation, said such practices “normalise vaping in the eyes of children”.
A ban on the sale of vaping products and e-cigarettes to people under 18 came into effect in 2023.
According to a 2024 Growing up in Ireland survey, almost 10 per cent of 13-year olds had tried vaping.
