Treatment of single parents?

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For some women, I think the desire to be a mother is very strong. Maybe she got tired of waiting for Mr. Right to come along. As I said, she owned her own home, had a career and did a good job raising her daughter.
I agree, a father is important. Sometimes it
just doesn’t work out that way.
 
The Catholic Church has not in my lifetime frowned on baptizing the children of single parents just because the parent was unmarried, or had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. This may have been an issue prior to Vatican II. In those days, often the couple would marry, or the girl would put the baby up for adoption, or the grandparents would pretend the baby was a late child of theirs, in order to avoid scandal.

By the 80s, any stigma attached to unwed pregnancy had largely disappeared. As I said, girls in my Catholic high school who got pregnant not only finished school but would be bringing their baby to school events, openly.

A priest will sometimes refuse to baptize the child if he feels the parent will not make a sincere effort to raise the child in the Church. He could get that impression from things the parent says or does or from the parent’s lifestyle or habits or lack of religious practice. Occasionally, individual priests might also make a wrong judgment based on their own biases or opinions, that doesn’t comport with the teaching of the Church.
 
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That could be the case, but maybe he didn’t come out and say that. At least, she was finally baptized.
 
I actually read a good article on the medieval era and unwed parents, it did not say that priests refused to baptize children, it would often say "father unknown’ on their certificates though, there was also a church blessing ceremony the babies were supposed to be brought to.

the article also documents some proceedings from ecclesiastical courts, and often if the father was known, the church required him to pay the girl child support, or they had to pay a fine for fornication even if no one was pregnant, often there was a public confession or public penance and then went off to live their lives.

but I digress, the examples you mention about prior Vatican II is exactly what these people think we should still be doing as a church, is there any reason why we should not be doing it?
 
angell1 said:
is there any reason why we should not be doing it?
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Their temperament might be swayed if you said it was unbefitting of Christians to act in such a manner, but sometimes they are just obstinate and are unable to be reasoned with.
 
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I have not seen people who advocate for shunning single parents with kids out of wedlock even Catholic circles, even online ones. OP must live in a pretty interesting area.
 
I think the downside of the internet is you can find an idiot for every opinion.
 
Ad a single father to four young children with a mother who has not called or visited in half a decade, I can assure you that the shunning of single parents is alive and well in the Catholic Church.

In my case, even with a decree of nullity in hand, there’s a sense of “don’t be unmarried around my wife” that can make it difficult to be in relationship with my fellow parishioners.
 
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is there anything prior to vatican II that would state this? they are convinced that this is what the church used to advocate doing
 
Something that was not made public out of respect for the person’s reputation.

I’ve had to tell volunteers NO because they were living in irregular situations with no intention of regularizing them.
 
Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
In my case, even with a decree of nullity in hand, there’s a sense of “don’t be unmarried around my wife” that can make it difficult to be in relationship with my fellow parishioners.
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To be fair, this attitude crops up everywhere that a single person is around married people, including in other churches and in community groups, social activities and everyplace else. I used to get the fisheye just being places without my husband when I was very married, not flirting, not having any marital issues, ring on my hand, mentioning my husband etc. I found out at one point there were some people in my social circle who thought I was fibbing about even having a spouse. There are a lot of very insecure spouses out there, perhaps with good reason, but it’s ridiculous.
 
By “The Church” they mean “some pastor somewhere shamed an unmarried parent.”

Mother Angelica was practically abused by the sisters at her grade school because her parents were divorced due to her dad abandoning the family. You can imagine what it was like for totally unmarried moms and their kids. Plus some of them may well have been in some kind of “irregular situation” which would have added to the shunning. Obviously this shunning, regardless of the situation, wasn’t very kind and especially not for the child who had no control over its parents’ choices.

You are better off just letting these people go because nothing you could say would convince them. You yourself can make an extra effort to reach out to anyone being shunned for any reason.
 
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Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
In my case, even with a decree of nullity in hand, there’s a sense of “don’t be unmarried around my wife” that can make it difficult to be in relationship with my fellow parishioners.
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It’s not just single parents who get this treatment.

Single people, parent or not, are treated as though they will steal someone’s spouse if given half the chance.
 
Sarcelle said:
It’s not just single parents who get this treatment.

Single people, parent or not, are treated as though they will steal someone’s spouse if given half the chance.
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Yup. I’m 31 and just plain old unmarried. And I have gotten the sense that the church often just doesn’t know what to do with those who are single later on.
 
As a single mother and grandmother with a decree of nullity in hand, I completely agree with you. I am sad to say, that as a divorced woman, attending church adds more stress to
my life that sometimes I would just as soon
not go.
 
As a widow, I pretty much avoid talking to anyone but people I’ve known a long time, elderly people, or totally single people/ clergy/ religious. I watched what my mom went through as a widow. Mom never dated anyone after dad died and yet women in her parish who had known her for decades acted like she was out to steal their old boring husbands. It didn’t help that Mom was kind of attractive and men enjoyed talking to her in a friendly way. One old bag even accused Mom of trying to break up her marriage after Mom hired her husband to help with some landscaping. They were all about 75 years old at the time.
 
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Our parish must be an exception, because widows, single parents, single childless adults, are pretty much the core of parish life.
 
Our Council of Women is almost exactly half and half, half are married women the other half are widows or singles. The Knights have a mix, but, fewer widowers (because in general women outlive men).

The Catholic Daughters leans heavily to married women, but it is much smaller.

Catechist volunteers, choir, lectors, etc, split down the middle.

It may be the demographic of our area, we have a heavy influx of young people working in the service industry and entertainment/sports as well as retirees. Typical tourist town.
 
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