Question about annulment

[praestat_fides]

Let’s say that a man and a woman get married in the Church and then have children together. If that couple gets an annulment does the Church consider the children to be illegitimate since the marriage never took place to begin with? I hope this doesn’t sound like a silly question.

 

[1ke]

Let’s say that a man and a woman get married in the Church and then have children together. If that couple gets an annulment does the Church consider the children to be illegitimate since the marriage never took place to begin with? I hope this doesn’t sound like a silly question.

Can. 1137 The children conceived or born of a valid or putative marriage are legitimate.

A putative marriage is a marriage entered into in good faith by at least one of the parties that later turns out to be invalid. The Church considers children from such unions legitimate.

 

[1ke]

Well, no, it is an ecclesial issue. There are canons that pertain to it specifically.

Currently, illegitimacy creates no impediments within Church law, however that has not always been the case and the law could change in the future.

Can. 1134 From a valid marriage there arises between the spouses a bond which by its nature is perpetual and exclusive. Moreover, a special sacrament strengthens and, as it were, consecrates the spouses in a Christian marriage for the duties and dignity of their state.

Can. 1135 Each spouse has an equal duty and right to those things which belong to the partnership of conjugal life.

Can. 1136 Parents have the most grave duty and the primary right to take care as best they can for the physical, social, cultural, moral, and religious education of their offspring.

Can. 1137 The children conceived or born of a valid or putative marriage are legitimate.

Can. 1138 §1. The father is he whom a lawful marriage indicates unless clear evidence proves the contrary.

§2. Children born at least 180 days after the day when the marriage was celebrated or within 300 days from the day of the dissolution of conjugal life are presumed to be legitimate.

Can. 1139 Illegitimate children are legitimated by the subsequent valid or putative marriage of their parents or by a rescript of the Holy See.

Can. 1140 As regards canonical effects, legitimated children are equal in all things to legitimate ones unless the law has expressly provided otherwise.

 

[SJacob7]

The question in OP had me thinking. If I had an annulment, which by my understanding means the marriage never happened, am I in a state of mortal sin because I have been cohabitating and having sexual relations with this person for the past 10 or 20 years? Or, if the marriage never happened, maybe we never had sexual relations either as far as the church goes.

 

[1ke]

The question in OP had me thinking. If I had an annulment, which by my understanding means the marriage never happened,

That language isn’t precise, IMHO. A decree of nullify is a finding of fact that an attempt at marriage had a defect or impediment that rendered that attempt invalid. The Church does not say a marriage “never happened”, because certainly a civil marriage did talk place. It would be termed a putative marriage.

am I in a state of mortal sin because I have been cohabitating and having sexual relations with this person for the past 10 or 20 years?

No.

 

[SerraSemper]

The question in OP had me thinking. If I had an annulment, which by my understanding means the marriage never happened, am I in a state of mortal sin because I have been cohabitating and having sexual relations with this person for the past 10 or 20 years? Or, if the marriage never happened, maybe we never had sexual relations either as far as the church goes.

If someone receives a declaration of nullity and had been in the union in good faith, there would be no state of mortal sin for having marital relations during the time of believing it was valid because the marriage is presumed valid until and unless proved otherwise. So even if technically the couple were actually single during that time, they believed they were married and you can’t sin mortally without knowing it’s a sin.