40% of babies born to unmarried women !!!

[silicasandra]

Lightsway:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walking_Home

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Being “Old fashioned” does not make it right. There was a time when unwed mothers were not only shamed – but the child was called derogatory names. Parents would not allow their children to play – with the child of a “fallen” woman.

Now I am not a Catholic anymore but I was well versed and classically trained by my father: So you do realize that illegitimate children do not have the same standing in the catholic church as legitimate children.

Such as an illegitimate child can not be a priest, unless a dispensation has been granted. Also these children do not have a rights to inheritance. This comes from one of the churches greatest thinkers Thomas Aquinas. He was very smart man and if you believe in natural law, which he is a master of. I would defer to his teaching as opposed to your “feelings” on this matter.

newadvent.org/summa/5068.htm#article2

You will see they can indeed be made legitimate, but I doubt that even enters into peoples minds these days.

“Legitimacy” is a legal issue, not a religious one. This post is really, really out there - you were not catechized properly. Yes, St. Thomas was brilliant, and many of his ideas contributed to the development of Church theology, but he ain’t the Magisterium.

I am sorry you have left the Church. I think She could teach you much about love and Christian charity if you weren’t so busy trying to justify a hardened heart. Prayers for you.

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[BlueEyedLady]

The parents came of age during the 1960s through 1980s and they also engaged in pre/extra marital sex and don’t necessarily believe it is wrong. They are the ones throwing the baby showers and no longer sending their daughters off to their out of town aunts to secretly give birth and give their grandchild up for adoption to avoid public shame and scandel. For the most part the proverbial shotgun is gone. The expected mother might convince a boyfriend to marry and have a “premature baby” but fathers and brothers no longer act as the big stick in the background should the man refuse. Only the state steps in, and in that case just to sieze money if the father has any.

Most of these out of wedlock babies are born to adults, not teens. Most adult women are independent of their parents, so how exactly are they going to be sent away? Really, if I got pregnant tomorrow should my parents drive across the country, pack up my life, quit law school and my job for me, and send me to I don’t know, Europe?

 

[JaneGrey]

The parents came of age during the 1960s through 1980s and they also engaged in pre/extra marital sex and don’t necessarily believe it is wrong. They are the ones throwing the baby showers and no longer sending their daughters off to their out of town aunts to secretly give birth and give their grandchild up for adoption to avoid public shame and scandel. For the most part the proverbial shotgun is gone. The expected mother might convince a boyfriend to marry and have a “premature baby” but fathers and brothers no longer act as the big stick in the background should the man refuse. Only the state steps in, and in that case just to sieze money if the father has any.

So you think that unmarried women who become mothers should be hidden away? Attitudes like this remind me why I never felt a part of the Church

 

[JaneGrey]

**I wasn’t “punished” with a single parent household. I wasn’t “deprived” of a complete and loving family. I had (and still have) a very wonderful family who taught me nothing if not self-sacrifice. ** I learned what was really important in life, how to get by without material things, what it meant to stick together, and so many other very important things. I saw my mom work hard and give everything she had for us. She inspired me to want to do the same.

The idea that it would have been better for me to be given to a two-parent household that had more money is so utterly insane. My mom was wonderful, but she didn’t do anything extraordinary that no one else could. If a single mom is willing to do what it takes to love and protect their child, and make the necessary sacrifices, then there is no reason to think that the child would automatically be better off elsewhere.

As for not wanting children to grow up in poverty, here’s a little known secret: If a parent is a good parent, the kid doesn’t realize the family is poor until they look back as an adult. I had more dress up costumes, books, and dolls than any of my friends. My mom went to auctions and bought boxes of random stuff for a dollar each to keep me entertained and to make sure that I had stuff to read. She bought a chalk board and taught me numbers, arithmetic, and shapes before kindergarten because we couldn’t afford preschool. She also had me reading at a 4th grade level before I started school because she felt so bad that I might fall behind without preschool she worked to compensate, and did a very good job. It never occurred to me that everyone else had lights on all the time, or that they ate differently than we did. We always made sure to donate our change whenever the opportunity came up, and we volunteered all the time. No matter what my mom always made it clear that we were fortunate for everything that we had and that there were people out there with even less. Honestly, I am so thankful that I grew up poor. I know what it means to have it rough, I know how to scrimp and save, I know how to get by, and I appreciate even the little things so much more.

Thank you. My life is not a mistake and a tragedy. If people think my existence threatens the sanctity of marriage, then they have problems of their own. I think people on this site tend to forget that so-called ‘illegitimate’ children (a word I think should be banned) are human beings who can read the disgusting, hurtful comments that are made about them and their parents.

 

[JaneGrey]

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There is a way – for I have seen boys and girls from single mothers – grow up to be responsible men and women. Of course – I believe in this situations – no one went around telling them that their lack of father set them up on the road to failure.

You hit the nail on the head. I had a wonderful childhood, and never heard that my life was destined for failure until I began to mix around in Christian and Catholic circles and came on this site. I am glad I did not know such people when I was an impressionable young child.

I have known some individuals, born ‘into wedlock’ who are intolerable to be around. Somehow no one is rushing to question their existence.

I am sorry that more than a few seem to think my conception and life is a tragedy and a social ill. I happen to think my life is pretty amazing, and I think those who have been positively affected by it would agree.

 

[robotsarecool]

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon13.gif, DaddyGirl I think you should read this again and again:
(1 Corinthians 6:9-10):
“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

So you think the sin of fornication is too big for God to forgive? I think you are wrong and that does not fit with Catholic teaching. People can repent of their sins and be saved.

 

[4Squarebaby]

So you think that unmarried women who become mothers should be hidden away? Attitudes like this remind me why I never felt a part of the Church

I didn’t say that, the question was asked why don’t parents teach their children, what has changes. The social attitude has changed from hiding and pretending the mother is the aunt to accepting and treating the mother, you can not see a pregnant father, just as we treat a married woman. And with acceptance came the spike of out of wedlock births as their is no longer societal pressure to stop them.

The shotgun does not exist anymore to suppress the rate, and where it does exist it is wielded by a policeman who is only there to collect money not to ensure a father is in the picture. Today a shotgun wedding is the mother telling the father you might as well marry me and continue to enjoy the marital benefits because you will lose the money anyway. It is not the family standing up to protect their children and grandchildren.,

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t doubt that you grew up in a wonderful home, BEL.

The point is this, and it is irrefutable: there is no better way to raise a baby than to have a mom and a dad, together, in the same home, married, and in love with each other, who worship God together.

I think you misunderstand the point we’re trying to make. I don’t think anyone is arguing that a child wouldn’t prefer to grow up watching his or her dad and his or her own mother taking care of each other in a healthy relationship with each other, with the child, and with God and neighbor. This doesn’t compare to a case where the child has parents in strife or a neighborhood in chaos or only one biological parent or who is without religion or charity or the basic necessities for life in the home. Of course all those things matter very much.

A person who chooses to have a child with anyone else than his or her own spouse is denying the child a parent. That’s wrong, even if it is possible that a parent might ignorantly make that choice wishing no harm on the child.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that a parent who is alone should be held to keep the child at all costs, as if adoptive parents weren’t wonderful parents. That is also quite far from what I meant, and far from the truth.

My point is that I don’t know anyone with a capable parent who wouldn’t prefer his or her own parent to anyone else on the planet, even if the parents were not going to be living together. In the child’s mind, and rightly so, his or her own parent is special over anyone else, and that only changes by reason of a very great trauma in the relationship between parent and child. A mother faced with such a decision knows this. A child entrusted to others will feel abandoned unless it was done for a grave reason–I mean this is on an emotional level; I don’t mean that adoption is at all anything like abandonment. Therefore, it is only reasonable that a parent not proven incapable ought to have the duty and obligation of discerning his or her own capacity to parent alone or to entrust a child to others. The choice to trust that child to anyone else belongs to the parent of the child alone, just as the obligation to parent as well as one can do it exists simply from the nature of being a parent.

In any event, the parent courageous enough to allow their child the right to live, even when it is clear that both parent and child will suffer hardships as a result, acts in keeping with the will of God. It is far better to protect a child from damaging hardship, but even a life with suffering is better than usurping the decision that is God’s alone: that is, whose life ought to be lived and whose should not.

I think that you may be responding to the wrong poster, EasterJoy.

Perhaps you were responding to BlueEyedLady?

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Thank you. My life is not a mistake and a tragedy. If people think my existence threatens the sanctity of marriage, then they have problems of their own. I think people on this site tend to forget that so-called ‘illegitimate’ children (a word I think should be banned) are human beings who can read the disgusting, hurtful comments that are made about them and their parents.

Although my mom was married when she got pregnant her husband turned on a dime in to an abusive, drunk monster. He always had a problem, but it exploded when she got pregnant. My brother moved her out of the house and in with her mother in the middle of the night while he was at a bar. So I have never met my father or his family, so while my mom didn’t “sin”, I am for all intents and purposes “illegitimate”. I definitely stand on the side of single moms, no matter how they got that way, who do the best they can and give everything they have over the people who would say that these families are the biggest threat to society. That’s not even a question.

‘Illegitimate’ is a disgusting word. You were clearly very legitimate to someone, or you wouldn’t have been raised with all the love that you were.

 

[JimG]

Thank you. My life is not a mistake and a tragedy. If people think my existence threatens the sanctity of marriage, then they have problems of their own. I think people on this site tend to forget that so-called ‘illegitimate’ children (a word I think should be banned) are human beings who can read the disgusting, hurtful comments that are made about them and their parents.

Of course. No child’s life is a mistake and a tragedy. What is a mistake and a tragedy is an out of wedlock birthrate of 40% to 70%. Does anyone really believe that our civilization can survive such atomization of family structure? Pointing out the adverse consequences of such trends is not an attack on individuals born into such situations or on their parents. They do the best they can. They turn a potentially bad situation into good. A great many of them do. A great many of them thrive.

But many of them don’t. Not everyone is so capable. Is a child born to a 14 year old going to be as fortunate as a child born to an adult? Will she be cared for by grandma while mom finishes school? Yes, it’s possible, but it simply isn’t an ideal situation.

Anyone who is having sex must be prepared to have and to care for a child. Because no contraception is perfect. If one is having sex without being married, one is telling their potential child, “you may not be born into the best situation. You may not have a dad. Dad, or mom, or both, might just disappear. But right now, at this moment, that’s not important to me. It’s not as important to me as having sex with this man who has never made a commitment to stay with me, or to raise you, so we’ll just have to do the best we can.”

I’ve mentioned Carle Zimmerman’s book “Family & Civilization.” It’s not a book of theory. It’s a historical study, and it was written in the 1940’s, before the breakdown of the family had reached such an advanced state as it has now. Even then, his conclusion was that the current state of families in western societies was showing signs of atomization equal to the two prior historical instances which led to civilizational collapse.

Individuals and individual families differ widely in their ability to cope. Society as a whole bears the weight of all those accumulated individual decisions.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

I was actually raised by wolves. Sure some people say it isn’t the ideal way for a child to be raised, but I look back with fondness on my days spent with the pack. I know I never missed having the “ideal” family and we always had everything I ever needed.

 

[JimG]

I was actually raised by wolves. Sure some people say it isn’t the ideal way for a child to be raised, but I look back with fondness on my days spent with the pack. I know I never missed having the “ideal” family and we always had everything I ever needed.

And had a healthy lifestyle, spending a lot of time outdoors!

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I was actually raised by wolves. Sure some people say it isn’t the ideal way for a child to be raised, but I look back with fondness on my days spent with the pack. I know I never missed having the “ideal” family and we always had everything I ever needed.

I really hope you aren’t comparing my family or anyone else’s to being raised by animals to “prove” some sort of point here.

 

[Sarcelle]

Of course. Still, a woman often acts as the conscience of a man. Unfair, surely. And in a good marriage, the spouses can act to reinforce the good in the other.

But fot the unmarried? Well, contraception gave men a great out. Now, there’s no reason for women to say ‘no,’ because she’s got the pill, he’s got the condom, abortion is available. No worries, right? But the consequences were disastrous. (See “Adam and Eve After the Pill” for a rundown of the results.)

I grew up at the wrong time. Back when I was in high school, all the guys were trying to get sex and all the girls were saying ‘no,’ and there were a few shotgun weddings (which ended up lasting for life) but there was no 40% out of wedlock pregnancy rate.

OK, so it was unfair that women had to be the gatekeepers. They gave up the job. And have the results been good?

True, contraception gave men a great out. The pregnancy scare has been nullified. Still, when a man and woman engage in sex outside of marriage both are committing sin. The man should not point to the woman and said she made me do it and vice-versa. They are responsible for their own sin.

Both, and I mean both should act as their own conscience. Remember Adam’s excuse in the Garden of Eden. He points to Eve and tells God she made him do it? God did not buy it.

 

[Sarcelle]

I was actually raised by wolves. Sure some people say it isn’t the ideal way for a child to be raised, but I look back with fondness on my days spent with the pack. I know I never missed having the “ideal” family and we always had everything I ever needed.

And I was raised by bears.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

I really hope you aren’t comparing my family or anyone else’s to being raised by animals to “prove” some sort of point here.

I was offering my own anecdote to disprove that the traditional family is ideal. Don’t judge my family.

 

[JimG]

True, contraception gave men a great out. The pregnancy scare has been nullified. Still, when a man and woman engage in sex outside of marriage both are committing sin. The man should not point to the woman and said she made me do it and vice-versa. They are responsible for their own sin.

Both, and I mean both should act as their own conscience. Remember Adam’s excuse in the Garden of Eden. He points to Eve and tells God she made him do it? God did not buy it.

And God still isn’t buying it! Nevertheless, the decisions men and women make with regard to casual sex affect others beside themselves, most particularly their children. That’s why marriage was instituted!

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I was offering my own anecdote to disprove that the traditional family is ideal. Don’t judge my family.

Wow, what a horrible thing to say. I’m sorry that you feel entitled to look down on families other than your own, to compare single parent household to wolves, and to say that you know that despite what someone says their family is just not good enough.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think that you may be responding to the wrong poster, EasterJoy.

Perhaps you were responding to BlueEyedLady?

Sort of both…my point is that it is not internally inconsistent to say both that a two-parent family is ideal and that keeping a child with her own parent, even with one of them and one of them alone in a situation with its difficulties, can also be the ideal. Sometimes this choice between a single unmarried parent and adoptive parents is a choice between two alternatives that each promise both deep love and a certain unavoidable amount of trial for the child. I doubt it is often an obvious decision. My quarrel is with anyone who implies that it ought to be.

More to the point, if you’re raised well and lovingly by wolves (to pick up an idea running through the thread), then of course you will feel affection, owe gratitude, and be demanded by loyalty to defend your parents as having been entirely fit. It is hard to say it, but this doesn’t automatically imply that wolves deserve no prejudice whatsoever against them as prospective parents. Sometimes, after all, it is the exception that proves the rule.

 

[Walking_Home]

Walking_Home:

Being “Old fashioned” does not make it right. There was a time when unwed mothers were not only shamed – but the child was called derogatory names. Parents would not allow their children to play – with the child of a “fallen” woman.

Now I am not a Catholic anymore but I was well versed and classically trained by my father: So you do realize that illegitimate children do not have the same standing in the catholic church as legitimate children.

Such as an illegitimate child can not be a priest, unless a dispensation has been granted. Also these children do not have a rights to inheritance. This comes from one of the churches greatest thinkers Thomas Aquinas. He was very smart man and if you believe in natural law, which he is a master of. I would defer to his teaching as opposed to your “feelings” on this matter.

newadvent.org/summa/5068.htm#article2

You will see they can indeed be made legitimate, but I doubt that even enters into peoples minds these days.

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Well – let me burst your bubble. The Church – no longer holds – that being born “illegitimate” is an impediment to holy orders.

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=490653&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2007&Author=&Keyword=illegitimate+children&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=3&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=
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I’ve heard from others that as an illegitimate child I have a different status in canon law than legitimate children. I heard that some things are closed to me, like holy orders, and that it is more difficult for me to be married in the Church. I later read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that illegitimate children cannot be ordained.

I’m recently out of college and am seriously considering the priesthood vs. married life. I’m not an expert in canon law. Could you help me out here?

Thanks, James
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Answer by Rev. Mark J. Gantley, JCL on 01-06-2007:
**There is no prohibition against children born of an illegitimate union being admitted to sacred orders. The past prohibition was not included in the current Code of Canon Law.

In fact, there are no consequeces to illegitimacy in the current Code of Canon Law**.

Furthermore – the following is from the Gaudium Et Spes – the Pastoral Constitution on the Church. It is not at all feasible – that the mistreatment unwed mothers and their children suffered in the past – is something that we should be carrying forward.

God’s Spirit, Who with a marvelous providence directs the unfolding of time and renews the face of the earth, is not absent from this development. The ferment of the Gospel too has aroused and continues to arouse in man’s heart the irresistible requirements of his dignity.

27.** Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone must consider his every neighbor without exception as another self**, taking into account first of all His life and the means necessary to living it with dignity,(8) so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus.(9)

In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, “As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me” (Matt. 25:40).