My Parents never married, How will this affect me?

[Mary888]

It doesn’t affect you in front of God, it only affects you in front of the world.
The judgement of the world is crooked.
Just move forward and pray for your parents too. And you should pray for them even if they were married. :hugs:

 

[ChunkMonk]

Do you realize that Jesus was born out of a line that included a man who slept with his own daughter-in-law who was disguised as a prostitute?

God is jealous. He doesn’t request you, He demands you. He gave His only Son to be sacrificed for your sake. You alone. If you were the only person who needed to be saved and everyone else but you was in Heaven, Jesus would have still gone through every single pain, every lash of the whip, every bloody step of Calvary, every minute hanging on a cross, suffocating to death in front of his mother, just for you. Christ would shed every drop of his blood for you. Blood that is more valuable than every world in every universe that has ever existed.

You are not condemned, fool! You are saved!

 

[acanonlawyer]

But why does the church define “Legitimate” and “Illegitimate” children and why does it mention “Legitimization” if they are all to be treated the same?

Basically it is because some places still have laws concerning this. The Church wanted to keep the terminology in her own law so that those local laws would be possible and, at the same time, make sure the local laws would correspond to the universal law. I hope that makes sense.

Dan

 

[Sy_Noe]

I think the priest was justified in that case. If I was a priest and the parents were in an invalid marriage but could marry in the Church I’d insist that they did before baptising their children.

Except I didn’t say that he asked that they marry in the Church at that point. You’re reading something into the story that wasn’t there.

In any case, per the thread question, it could be argued that my Catholic parents never marrying in the eyes of the Catholic Church, could have affected my sisters… had another priest in the same parish not been willing to perform the baptisms and had he not already scheduled them… before being called out of town on the day of. But fortunately in my family’s case, as fate would have it, there was no effect.

 

[Phemie]

At one time, yes this was true.

My mother, who graduated from HS in 1965 had a friend who got pregnant. Not only would the Church not Baptize her baby, her Pastor told her not to come to Church with the “little b------”!
I have also heard this story, and similar ones, from many people of that age since I have been working with the Catholics Come Home group in my diocese.

So, now it is not really an issue, but to say it never was would be a lie.

That was one priest’s decision, but that certainly was not Church policy. In fact there were rules for baptizing babies born out of wedlock, such as not naming the parents in the registers unless they requested it. There are several such in the records of my home parish.

 

[Sy_Noe]

CilladeRoma:

At one time, yes this was true.

My mother, who graduated from HS in 1965 had a friend who got pregnant. Not only would the Church not Baptize her baby, her Pastor told her not to come to Church with the “little b------”!
I have also heard this story, and similar ones, from many people of that age since I have been working with the Catholics Come Home group in my diocese.

So, now it is not really an issue, but to say it never was would be a lie.

That was one priest’s decision, but that certainly was not Church policy. In fact there were rules for baptizing babies born out of wedlock, such as not naming the parents in the registers unless they requested it. There are several such in the records of my home parish.

I agree with this. Although it does show how one priest’s decision could affect a person. I would wonder how many women in such a situation along with their child, would have stayed away from the Catholic Church altogether after such an encounter with a priest. And beyond the mother and child but perhaps the grandparents and others whom might not have appreciated the mother being told what she was. Perhaps years if not forever.

 

[CilladeRoma]

It was one priest that I talked about.
I have been working with “Catholics Come Home”. I have heard the same thing from others also, both from my diocese and outside it.

It may not have been “Church teaching”, but there are enough people out there who think it is that it has kept them away for years.

 

[Todd_Easton]

I don’t know about today but, as I understand it, from the 12th century on until at least the last century, Illegitimacy was a canonical impediment to priestly ordination. (source) This is all I could find in the current Code of Canon Law concerning illegitimate children:

Can. 1137 Children who are conceived or born of a valid or of a putative marriage are legitimate.
Can. 1138 §1 The father is he who is identified by a lawful marriage, unless by clear arguments the contrary is proven.
§2 Children are presumed legitimate who are born at least 180 days after the date the marriage was celebrated, or within 300 days from the date of the dissolution of conjugal life.
Can. 1139 Illegitimate children are legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents, whether valid or putative, or by a rescript of the Holy See.
Can. 1140 As far as canonical effects are concerned, legitimated children are equivalent to legitimate children in all respects, unless it is otherwise expressly provided by the law. (source)

I couldn’t find a canon in the current Code of Canon Law that expressly mentions illegitimacy as one of the impediments to ordination. (source)