We thank God for the many converts we have witnessed to the True Faith as many Novus Ordo Catholics are leaving the Conciliar Church or as the late Dominican theologian, Cardinal Yves Congar called it, "the Church of Vatican II".

Due to ignorance, many are conditionally confirmed upon their conversion to the traditional, True Faith.  For those were formerly Protestants, a number of them were not conditionally baptized in the Novus Ordo before becoming traditional Catholics.  My friend's mom from church (who is a trad) was never conditionally baptized after leaving the Lutheran Church.  Her parish priest from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, who offers the traditional Mass, told her that her Protestant baptism was safe!  

If you were confirmed after August 15, 1971 in the Novus Ordo, I recommend that you receive conditional confirmation.  If you received the Traditional Rite of Confirmation before 1971 by a Novus Ordo bishop consecrated in the 1968 New Rite of Episcopal Consecration or a Novus Ordo priest ordained in the 1968 New Rite of Priestly Ordination, I exhort you to receive conditional confirmation.  You may receive conditional Confirmation from either the SSPX, the CMRI, the SSPV, or from the Thuc bishops associated with Bishop Robert Mckenna or Bishop Donald Sanborn---all of whom were consecrated in the pre-1968 Rite of Holy Orders.

This is what the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had to say about the 1971 New Rite of Confirmation:

 "The Sacrament of Confirmation has been equally maltreated. One formula current today is, Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the minister does not then specify what is the special grace of the sacrament by which the Holy Ghost gives Himself, and the sacrament is invalid. That is why I always respond to the requests of parents who have doubts regarding the validity of the [Novus Ordo] confirmation received by their children or who fear it will be administered invalidly, seeing what goes on around them. The [Novus Ordo] cardinals to whom I had to explain myself in 1975 reproached me on this and since then similar reproaches are repeated through the press on all my journeys. I explained why I carried on in this way. I meet the wishes of the faithful who ask me for valid confirmation, even if it is not licit, because we are in a period when divine law, natural and supernatural, has precedence over positive ecclesiastical law when the latter opposes the former instead of being a channel to transmit it."

I'm beginning to think I need to do a complete re-boot.

Isn't that the phraseology that has been used in the Eastern Catholic Churches for centuries?  Are their Confirmations also suspect?

This topic is relevant to me.  I am happy that I am getting conditionally reconfirmed next Sunday in the Old Rite by a traditional bishop! Since beginning to read deeper into the crisis I have had some nagging doubts about my NO confirmation/reception. I am glad to be able to put those doubts to rest.

Luke

So the Rite used up until the new one is fine ? In other words if a person was confirmed in 1966 he/she is safe ?

When I start attending the SSPX which is the only traditional group in my country ( we don't have CMRI or SSPV) then I will ask them for confirmation.

I know that the SSPX often conditionally confirms those who were "confirmed" in the Novus Ordo.

Quote from: St Magnus

So the Rite used up until the new one is fine ? In other words if a person was confirmed in 1966 he/she is safe ?

Anyone ?

It may sound like a silly question, but the reason I'm asking is that by 1966, they had already started tinkering with the Mass. I was confirmed in 1966.

Yes, in 1966 the traditional sacraments were fine.  By the late 1960s, they were celebrated in the vernacular but still using the proper form and matter.

I know an elderly Catholic who received Confirmation from Cardinal Timothy Manning (r. 1970-1985) in the year 1970.  This elderly man was worried about Confirmation being valid.  I assured him that the Novus Ordo still used the Traditional Rite in 1970 and Cardinal Manning was a validly ordained priest and bishop (consecrated by Archbishop Joseph McGucken, the Archbishop of San Francisco during the reign of Pope Pius XII).  Luckily for him, he received Confirmation a year before the changes were promulgated by Pope Paul VI.

Pope Leo XIII taught this so that they way you have no doubts about your 1966 Confirmation:

A person [priest/bishop] who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do what the [Catholic] Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the [traditional] Catholic rite be employed.

Which is why in the past, the Roman Catholic Church has accepted the episcopal and priestly ordinations conferred by the first Prime Minister of France, Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, who simultaneously was a Freemason and a excommunicated Catholic prelate.  All the schismatic French bishops (consecrated by Msgr. Talleyrand) later on reconciled with Rome and were never conditionally ordained.

As long as a validly ordained bishop or priest uses the Traditional Rite, whether he is a Modernist, Traditionalist, Heretic, or unbeliever, the sacrament is presumed valid unless proven otherwise, based from the teachings of Pope Leo XIII in Aposotlicae Curae.

This however does not extend the New Rites of Sacraments, particularly Ordinations, Eucharist, Last Rites, and Confirmation.  In some vernacular translations like the ones used in Papua New Guinea or in the Philippines, Baptism is to be rejected or held doubtful because the translations does not reflect a word-for-word rendition from the original Latin text.