Illegitimacy

[Digitonomy]

Periodically you will hear on Catholic Answers or on these forums questions about whether a child is considered illegitimate in the eyes of the church. Regardless of the response to the state of the questioner’s marriage, the answerer always emphasizes that the Church doesn’t want to punish children for the sins of their parents.

Sensible enough. But it wasn’t always so. What were the old rules and restrictions about illegitimate children who wanted to become priests, participate in other sacraments, join religious orders, participate in other ceremonies, or hold other posts?

 

[Mike_C]

St. martin de Porres when he orignially joined the Dominicans, was a teritary brother (a layman who lived in the convent, without vows). By the proding of his father, he was admitted to the brotherhood, but barred from the priesthood because he was illegitimate. I guess this has changed now.

 

[loyola_rambler]

The answer is…it depends. There are some priests who will refuse to baptize a baby born out of wedlock unless the parents state they will marry each other within a certain period of time. There are others who say that we don’t punish the children for the indiscretions of their parents.

If you ever do genealogy, you’ll find that some parish records were pretty cruel about how explicit they’d get about illegitimacy. If the mother agreed to put her child in an orphanage, then the child was accorded much more respect in the Church than if the mother tried to keep the baby and raise him/her at home. Some parish records get pretty explicit about the “holiness” or lack thereof in the mother, her parents, etc. Other priests had a lot more compassion and only made a small notation “father unknown”. If you track the progression of the sacraments, some kids were clearly allowed every sacrament, while others were not given Confirmation and Communion until they were adults.

 

[space_ghost]

digitonomy:

Periodically you will hear on Catholic Answers or on these forums questions about whether a child is considered illegitimate in the eyes of the church. Regardless of the response to the state of the questioner’s marriage, the answerer always emphasizes that the Church doesn’t want to punish children for the sins of their parents.

Sensible enough. But it wasn’t always so. What were the old rules and restrictions about illegitimate children who wanted to become priests, participate in other sacraments, join religious orders, participate in other ceremonies, or hold other posts?

Main Entry: il·le·git·i·mate
Pronunciation: "i-li-‘ji-t&-m&t
Function: adjective
1 : not recognized by the law as offspring; specifically : born out of marriage
NOTE: An illegitimate child is usually legitimated by his or her parents’ later marriage. Illegitimate children generally have the same inheritance rights under intestate successions as legitimate children; statutes limiting their inheritance rights have been found to violate the equal protection clause.
2 : not valid according to law —illegitimate noun

Sometimes people ask, “If a marriage is annulled, does this make the children illegitimate?” The Declaration of Nullity simply states that a sacramental marriage did not take place and therefore both parties are now free to marry. The declaration has no civil bearing on the legitimacy of children.

hope this helps

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I think we are talking about two different things. A child who is born in a legal marriage, but invalid canonical marriage is not considered illegitimate. A child that is born outside of any legal union (two totally unmarried persons) is considered illegitimate.

 

[Digitonomy]

Br Rich - thanks for the clarification.
loyola rambler:

If you ever do genealogy, you’ll find that some parish records were pretty cruel about how explicit they’d get about illegitimacy. If the mother agreed to put her child in an orphanage, then the child was accorded much more respect in the Church than if the mother tried to keep the baby and raise him/her at home. Some parish records get pretty explicit about the “holiness” or lack thereof in the mother, her parents, etc. Other priests had a lot more compassion and only made a small notation “father unknown”. If you track the progression of the sacraments, some kids were clearly allowed every sacrament, while others were not given Confirmation and Communion until they were adults.

Thanks for the interesting perspective. But while it appears there may have been some discretion available to priests or bishops in how to deal with this, there must also have been some hard and fast rules or guidelines. Does anyone know what these were, and when they were phased out in favor of the current approach?

 

[Digitonomy]

This came up in passing in another thread today - hoping someone can provide some more detail on this subject.

 

[kaymart]

To answer the OP, In my own family, My Father’s cousin is a Monsigner and he was born without his parents being Married to each other, in fact his mother had an affair with a Married Man. (this was in the 1930’s) No child should be held back because of the sins of his/her parents.

 

[YinYangMom]

New Advent Encyclopedia:

newadvent.org/cathen/02579b.htm

(ILLEGITIMACY) A canonical impediment to ordination. When used in this connection, the word illegitimate has, in canon law, a well-defined meaning, which is: “born out of lawful wedlock”. Illegitimate birth is an impediment to the reception of orders, and inhibits the exercise of the functions of orders already received. It is a canonical impediment, because established and laid down in the canon law as a hindrance to entering the clerical state. This prohibition does not touch the validity of orders, but makes the reception of them illicit…

(ILLEGITIMATE BIRTH)
As generally defined, and as understood in this article, illegitimacy denotes the condition of children born out of wedlock. It should be noted, however, that, according to the Roman law and the canon law, an illegitimate child becomes legitimate by the subsequent marriage of its parents. This legal provision has been adopted by many European countries, but it does not obtain in England or in most of the United States…

 

[Digitonomy]

So was ordination the only sacrament or aspect of Church life which was canonically restricted to the illegitimate?

 

[axolotl]

loyola rambler:

The answer is…it depends. There are some priests who will refuse to baptize a baby born out of wedlock unless the parents state they will marry each other within a certain period of time. There are others who say that we don’t punish the children for the indiscretions of their parents.

Gee, I thought Marriage was suppposed to be entered into freely. Sounds like a slam dunk annulment if the marraige fails.

 

[cameron_lansing]

axolotl:

Gee, I thought Marriage was suppposed to be entered into freely. Sounds like a slam dunk annulment if the marraige fails.

Not necessarily. My comments are off topic to illegitimacy, but this merits a brief, general response.

The parties may have been intending marriage, and only the date is affected.

If a case of lack of discretion, the pressure may have been less than a truly grave one. The pressure needs to do more than accompany a decision to marry, it must truly disturb the capacity of a party to evaluate the essential rights and duties of marriage, oneself and the other person, and that prospect of life together (canon 1095, n 2).

Then too, if viewed as the grave fear of canon 1103, a person would have to be compelled to choose marriage in order to be free from the grave fear.

If a person went through the wedding ceremony solely to get the child baptized and really intended to exclude marriage itself (canon 1101), a number of things which are hard to prove would have to be proven.

So while the fact of such a circumstance can have some evidentiary or probative weight, it would be insufficient by itself to overturn the presumption of validity.

Whatever the particular ground of the case turned out to be, a lot more would be needed to establish moral certainty of invalidity.

Deacon John Cameron JCL
Lansing MI