Treatment of single parents?

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This is an attitude I have found prevalent and supported in articles from a certain Catholic website. They do advocate shunning, and a great many other questionable things, in their quest for purity, IMO.
 
TrumpTrain said:
Well, I was speaking in general, about women who purposely get pregnant without getting married because they feel they don’t need a husband. I think such women are selfish and despicable. I don’t know about this particular woman you speak of.
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Then I must be despicable in your eyes because when I was a single mom, I purposefully adopted another child because I know that having one permanent parent is immensely better than having zero family permanence with No Parents at all. 5 yrs later, I ended up married to a man, who as a single parent, had purposefully adopted one of his adult children earlier that same year we met. Is he despicable in your eyes, too, or is it only women who purposefully have a child that you can’t stand?
 
Umm the poster said purposely get pregnant… not adopt. How do you interpret them to be the same? In one situation you help a child who is already in a bad situation by making it better- of course one parent is better than none. In the case of getting pregnant with no intention for the child to have a father in his life, you are creating a bad situation for the child. Totally different.
 
I have a hard time understanding why so many in the church did it. my only reasoning is they wanted to deter fornication but I feel like there must be some other way.

what would have been a more practical way to emphasize that fornication was wrong?
 
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I am pretty sure that every Catholic above age 12 knows that the Church teaches that fornication is wrong*. This is taught in CCD/RE/Sunday School, it is in every printed “examine of conscience”, and I hope is taught by every parent to their kids. Those are the practical ways.

Edit to add * They may disagree or choose to ignore the Church teaching, but,they know about it.
 
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It just strikes me as incredibly misogynistic. Men didn’t have the same stigma / issue. A young girl commits one sin one time (potentially), and must be publicly derided and shamed for the rest of her life…
From a purely Thomist perspective, masturbation is objectively graver than fornication (which is a natural act, just in the wrong context)…did young men who commit this sin ever have to spend the rest of their life being psychologically tortured by their fellow Christians? Nope. This one sin was singled out, and only for women, because of the visible and constant reminder of said sin…a child.

At least the Catholic Church hasn’t had public penance for centuries. My parents conceived me while engaged, but not yet married, and had to publicly confess their sin to their congregation…and then pay the heavy social price thereafter.
 
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twf said:
My parents conceived me while engaged, but not yet married, and had to publicly confess their sin to their congregation…
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Did the priest make them do this? Or was this a non-Catholic Church?

We’ve had several people in my family who conceived kids before they were married in the Catholic Church. In all cases, the marriages were long and happy despite the bumpy start.
 
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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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this might have more to do with you being an ‘available’ male than a single parent.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Our parish must be an exception, because widows, single parents, single childless adults, are pretty much the core of parish life.
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it must be a localized issue as our parish is made up of a wide range of people. I’m divorced and on the Parish finance committee and also act as a greeter. Frankly we wouldn’t care what state the child was born into because we would want that child in our school.
 
That’s horrible and a scary thought. As a woman it’s my biggest fear.
 
angell1 said:
I’ve encountered with more increasing frequency, catholics who believe in publicaly shunning single parents who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock,
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I must be missing something. I’ve never met anyone who publicly shunned a single parent, or questions how they got pregnant, or anyone who was shunned for being a single parent or getting pregnancy out of wedlock (what an archaic turn of phrase).

Question: How does the lay person in the pew on Sunday know that the person who is attending with their child (but not the other parent), is in fact NOT married (maybe they just divide and conquer with respect to attending mass?).

How do they know that the child was conceived out of wedlock (is there some sign on the forehead visible only to some judgy people?

Why do they care? If the parent is bringing their child to church on a regular basis, trying to educate them in the faith, and living their life according to church teaching as best they can (they can’t force the other parent to marry afterall), then that’s all that should matter.

Seriously I don’t get it.
 
vsedriver said:
this might have more to do with you being an ‘available’ male than a single parent.
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Yet, practically speaking, isn’t that what a single parent is?

Whether widowed, individually chose to adopt, elected not to have an abortion, or divorced with a decree of nullity.

I think that’s to point of this thread - that these individuals sometimes (often?) feel unsupported by their church.
 
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I don’t wish to minimize a problem that people may be having, but over the last couple years we have had threads from virtually every group saying they feel unsupported by their church.
Single unmarrieds, married couples with kids, married couples without kids, young, old, those in mixed marriage, converts, you name it and somebody has complained.
 
Then something might need to change…

When talking with our Protestant brethren, they feel welcomed with open arms in their church community and at peace
 
There are plenty of content Catholics also who do not have a problem with their parish. However, they do not tend to post complaining threads here.

I have also met many Protestants who were dissatisfied with their church or felt unwelcome. They generally just go join another Protestant congregation that they like better.

My point is not that the Catholic Church is perfect with no room for improvement; rather it’s that people usually only speak up when they have a complaint, and that the Church is huge and diverse and each parish is going to have difficulty being all things to all people.
 
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