Illegitimate children Novus Ordo priests

[Quaremerepulisti]

You all seem to be accepting that a child primarily belongs to the mother, and not the father.  This is the fundamental tenet of matriarchy.  Until and unless you renounce that belief, there is absolutely no hope for a societal solution to our problems.  What you subsidize, you get more of.  Sociology 101.  Why expect women to have a man around when she can just as well have children, have access to a man's money, but without the actual bother of having to have him around?  And you can talk about marriage all you wish, but you've made disappear one of the fundamental reasons for its existence.

[Jayne]

You all seem to be accepting that a child primarily belongs to the mother, and not the father. 

I don't think that at all.  We have been discussing scenarios in which the father has abandoned his rights and responsibilities toward the child.

[Chestertonian]

Certain aspects of traditional European society I am not that fond of. Women aborting or otherwise shuttling off their illegitimate children into orphanages is one of them.

Also exposure... Leaving a child to die

[Sen]

Yes, I'm speaking about older societies. I think it's a good development in modern society that children born out of wedlock are not stigmatised as they once were, even if that's only an accidental development of the lack of shame which fornication carries in contemporary society. This is (even if accidentally) a "pro-life" development, because it makes it easier for mothers who want to keep the children to do so.

Even if the shame attached to illegitimacy was to safeguard against fornication, clearly this was carried to excess whenever women felt it more shameful to become pregnant after fornication than not to become pregnant; such customs are in place to protect the integrity of the family, but the fact is that in many older societies the pride & honour of the family was placed beyond the limits of charity and the teaching of the gospel, e.g. when mothers were separated from their children solely to protect the family's honour.

Where does the Gospel teach that it's uncharitable to separate mothers from their illegitimate children? If anything, it would be more charitable for the child to be given up to a married couple that cannot have children of their own. Most single mothers are irresponsible and raise their children to be criminals, which is detrimental to the child and to society. Let's be honest: most single mothers who get 'knocked up' and decide to keep the child aren't having ethical dilemmas over contraception and abortion and are most likely fine with both.

[Maximilian]

I wasn't looking at it under the category of sin, but in the separation of the mother and child; and in that aspect, it's just as lamentable either way.

No, wrong, not equally lamentable. Taking a child away from a woman who will raise it in sin is far from causing the same lamentation as when a virtuous mother dies leaving an orphan.

If a prostitute working in a whorehouse gives birth to a child, then taking that child away to be raised in a decent environment is not lamentable at all.

A society shouldn't encourage women to hide their illegitimate children in orphanages out of shame.

Yes, it should. That's the nature of shame. Shame is the instinct of Adam and Eve to hide in the cave. Shame is far better than shamelessness. When society has advanced to the stage of shamelessness, then it has gone far beyond mere sin and into the realm of the demonic.

[Maximilian]

There are two sins I'm referring to here: one on the part of the people who would encourage the mother to abandon her child out of shame,

Who gave you the authority to create new sins? And where did you pull this one out of?

Yes, in some cases, it might be best for the mother to give up her child; but to enforce this with shame, rather than permitting it only when necessary, is a corruption of morals/standards.

Wrong. Every Christian society in history has done this. Apparently you, living in this modern age of unparalleled decadence, know better than all the centuries of Catholic societies.

It shows a great falling away from basic knowledge of the Faith when a traditional Catholic calls the virtue of shame "a corruption of morals." Shame is one of the two foundations of the cardinal virtue of temperance.

The child is not merely a symbol of shame or sin, and should not be punished for her mother's sin of fornication.

Once again you disagree with every Christian society. And all other religious societies as well, for that matter.

The child suffers due to reality. In our modern depravity we believe that we can wave our hands and make reality disappear. But reality is strangely persistent, and all the bastards being born today are not going to be able to evade the consequences of their parents sins, no matter how "nice" we try to act about it.

The fact is that in these societies a woman brave enough to keep her illegitimate child would be forced to bare the shame of it for the rest of her life, whereas the woman who would fornicate with dozens of men but who had the "prudence" to use some kind of contraception or even abortion would later be able to get married and take part in "polite" society without issue. This is a corruption of morals/standards. It has nothing to do with the gospel and everything to do with worldly standards of respectability and familial pride. Children should not be separated from their mothers without grave reason, and the loss of honour is not sufficiently grave. Could we justify it to a child who grow up in an orphanage by saying, "sorry, but you're a symbol of sin and fornication, and your presence would have damaged the family's honour"?

You make too many unsubstantiated statements for me to parse every one of them, but I will simply point out that you are inventing your own new morality. Perhaps you will make a fine new religion right up there with Christian Science and the Mormons, but it's not the morality of traditional Catholic society.

There's no shame in getting pregnant.

Yes, yes there is. It's the visible manifestation of one's sin. That's what shame is.

If one woman commits fornication once and gets pregnant, and another commits it ten times but does not get pregnant – which has the greater shame?

The one who gets pregnant. Her sin might not be greater, but her shame is.

How does getting pregnant add to the sin of fornication?

By adding shame to the equation. Fornication is a sin, but sometimes it can be a secret sin. But when it proclaims itself openly in the marketplace as it becomes manifest to all, then there is also shame to go along with the sin.

If anything, it would partially take away the shame, because at least something good has come out of the evil, nature has been allowed to take its course, and the parents can repair for their sin by raising the child.

Illegitimate birth is not a good, but an evil.

[Maximilian]

I think it's a good development in modern society that children born out of wedlock are not stigmatised as they once were, even if that's only an accidental development of the lack of shame which fornication carries in contemporary society. This is (even if accidentally) a "pro-life" development, because it makes it easier for mothers who want to keep the children to do so.

You sing paeans of praise to our modern "pro-life" world in which
  a. Fornication is literally ubiquitous occurring everywhere by the billions
  b. Birth control is equally ubiquitous
  c. Abortions happen by the tens of millions
  d. Not to mention the rampant explosion of even graver perversions.

But thank God we no long have any shame! You want us to be thankful that sin no longer carries any stigma.

"The dead body doesn't feel the knife." We feel no shame because our souls are dead. We no longer stigmatize the effects of sin because we no longer recognize sin. And this you call a positive development.

Even if the shame attached to illegitimacy was to safeguard against fornication, clearly this was carried to excess whenever women felt it more shameful to become pregnant after fornication than not to become pregnant;

A woman feels shame when she is discovered in her sin. Pregnancy makes the sin visible. If a husband came home and found his wife in bed with another man, and then dragged her naked through the street, she would also feel shame because again her sin has been made visible.

such customs are in place to protect the integrity of the family,

You call traditional Catholic moral rules, "customs," but call them what you will, "protecting the integrity of the family" is the most important priority for preserving life. You so cavalierly dismiss "the integrity of the family" as something of no account.

but the fact is that in many older societies the pride & honour of the family was placed beyond the limits of charity and the teaching of the gospel, e.g. when mothers were separated from their children solely to protect the family's honour.

In your own self-created social system the protection that shame affords to virtue is to be denounced, but in traditional Catholic societies, the protection of virtue and the stigmatization of sin were recognized as essential elements.

[Geremia]

taking that child away to be raised in a decent environment is not lamentable at all.

It's a lamentable injustice to the child not to have a married father and mother raising him.

[John Lamb]

You all seem to be accepting that a child primarily belongs to the mother, and not the father.  This is the fundamental tenet of matriarchy.  Until and unless you renounce that belief, there is absolutely no hope for a societal solution to our problems.  What you subsidize, you get more of.  Sociology 101.  Why expect women to have a man around when she can just as well have children, have access to a man's money, but without the actual bother of having to have him around?  And you can talk about marriage all you wish, but you've made disappear one of the fundamental reasons for its existence.

I agree with you.

[John Lamb]

Wrong. Every Christian society in history has done this. Apparently you, living in this modern age of unparalleled decadence, know better than all the centuries of Catholic societies.

It shows a great falling away from basic knowledge of the Faith when a traditional Catholic calls the virtue of shame "a corruption of morals." Shame is one of the two foundations of the cardinal virtue of temperance.

Christian societies were never entirely free of pagan or worldly elements. Shaming women so much as to smuggle away their illegitimate child is not Christian is nor is it the virtue of shame (modesty), but is due to a pagan ideal which puts family pride and honour above charity.

It's the same kind of thinking which made St. Alphonsus' father nearly ruin his vocation because he thought St. Alphonsus would do the family better as the top lawyer in Naples rather than as a mere priest, and also why St. Francis' father thought he'd be better off taking up the family business than wandering around as a begging friar.

Pagan codes of honour are not Christian morals. Like the ancient Roman matron Lucretia who committed suicide after being raped because she thought it was a stain on her chastity – that's not the Christian virtue of shame or chastity, that's just pagan pride. Women who put their children in orphanages solely because they wanted to avoid the public shame were not acting virtuously; they were doing it out of pride (or rather out of great fear of being ostracised for the rest of her life).

If one woman commits fornication once and gets pregnant, and another commits it ten times but does not get pregnant – which has the greater shame?

The one who gets pregnant. Her sin might not be greater, but her shame is.

How does getting pregnant add to the sin of fornication?

By adding shame to the equation. Fornication is a sin, but sometimes it can be a secret sin. But when it proclaims itself openly in the marketplace as it becomes manifest to all, then there is also shame to go along with the sin.

See, it's about being embarrassed "openly in the marketplace." So a woman who commits fornication ten or even a hundred times but who has the "discretion" to cover it up with contraception or abortion, is not as shameful (in your eyes) as one who commits this sin once and who has a baby.


Consider this scenario –

A young woman wants a baby but she is poor and nobody will marry her. However, she has a strong natural desire to have a baby. She commits fornication hoping to conceive a child. She does conceive a give birth to a baby, despite the shame of it being born outside wedlock.

Another young woman is rich and is already promised to a man in marriage. However, she likes to hang around in high society and seduce men to sleep with her. She does what she can to avoid conception, but she conceives a child and aborts it. She later marries the one to whom she was betrothed.

Who has acted more shamefully here? Who has the greater shame in God's eyes? Why should the first be considered a social pariah while the second is allowed to keep her place in society?

Illegitimate birth is not a good, but an evil.

The illegitimacy is an evil, but the birth is not.

"Our saint [Martin de Porres] was the illegitimate son of John de Porres, a Spanish nobleman and Knight of the Order of Alcantara, and Anna Velazquez, a freed, black, slave woman. At first, John was up in arms when he noticed that little Martin was black like his mother, and not tan, like a Spaniard. But later he repented and legally acknowledged Martin and his sister Joan, born two years later, as his own children. Because John, whom she finally married, was away most of the time, holding a government position in another country, poor Anna cared for her two children as best as she could. Finding what jobs she could, she somehow was able to make ends meet. She would often send little Martin to shop at the market place, and many a time he would come back home with an empty basket and no money! There were so many poor in Lima, and the boy could never refuse giving alms to the poor, even when it wasn't his own money, and even though he knew that his mother would scold and punish him when he returned home."

[...]

"Seeing his last chance to snatch the holy brother's soul, the devil too made a last visit to Martin. He tempted him to pride, saying, "Now you've won! You have spurned all obstacles beneath your feet; you're a saint! You can cease beating your breast; now is the moment of triumph!" But the good brother was not one to be fooled. He repulsed the devil by redoubling his acts of humility. The devil persisted, and Martin resisted. Suddenly, our saint fell into ecstasy. The Virgin Mary, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer and many other saints and angels had come to visit him. Martin made a general confession and begged everyone's forgiveness for his bad example. He then received Viaticum and extreme unction. Soon the clappers were sounded and the whole community came rushing to his cell. They crowded in as much as possible and while the brothers were chanting, the holy brother closed his eyes and went to his heavenly reward. Archbishop Felician de Vega was also there; and in a chocked voice he told the community, "Brethren, let us learn from Brother Martin how to die. This is the most difficult and most important lesson," then he returned to his palace. When some religious were preparing Martin's body for burial, they were astounded and overcome with emotion at seeing his wounded body. As they were dressing him in his new habit, suddenly, the infirmary was filled with piercing cries – Fr. John de Vargas was suffering intensely. Some friars who had just left Martin's cell told the priest to invoke Martin. Then as Fr. John invoked the holy brother, his pains vanished, and after a good night's sleep, he was completely cured. Martin had died in the odor of sanctity and when his body was exposed, it gave off a most delightful perfume that filled the whole church, and penetrated the soul with a sense of joy. Wave after wave of people came to see the holy brother and his body had to be clothed more than once, because they tore and cut his habit to shreds, keeping pieces as relics."

A woman feels shame when she is discovered in her sin. Pregnancy makes the sin visible.

But the pregnancy itself is not evil. The defect is in the woman's heart in choosing to be with a man outside of marriage, not in the woman's body in becoming pregnant. The natural process of becoming pregnant is a good thing in itself, and in the case of fornication it's a good brought out of evil. To the extent that the pregnancy is evidence of the woman's sin which brings shame upon her she should bear it publicly as penance, but without the public driving her to feel that the pregnancy itself is so shameful that she'd be better of killing or otherwise giving the baby away (even against her will).

[John Lamb]

Let's be honest: most single mothers who get 'knocked up' and decide to keep the child aren't having ethical dilemmas over contraception and abortion and are most likely fine with both.

Tell that to those who didn't kill their child precisely because they thought it was ethically wrong to do so.

[GeorgeB]

Illegitimate birth is not a good, but an evil.

This is a fascinating debate, but I'd like to point out a slight error with this statement.

All birth (creation of life) is willed by God, and is therefore good (Wisdom 11-12 if I remember correctly.)

Illegitimacy is certainly nothing to be proud of (as the secular "baby mama!" crowd would have it) but the sins of the father (and mother) are not visited upon the sons in this dispensation (Ezekiel 18).

Moreover, even if someone was born as the result of illicit and sinful sexual acts, God can still turn the existence of that person to good. The genealogy of Our Saviour (Matthew 1) includes at least one such "dubious" case - the case of Perez, born out of fornication between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar (yes, there's more to the story, but it is an illegitimate birth all the same.)

[Geremia]

The 1917 Code (can. 232§2.1) prohibited "Illegitimates, even if they were legitimized by a later marriage" "from the dignity of the cardinalate".
The corresponding 1983 CIC 351 dropped this prohibition.

[Philip G.]

Consider this scenario –

A young woman wants a baby but she is poor and nobody will marry her. However, she has a strong natural desire to have a baby. She commits fornication hoping to conceive a child. She does conceive a give birth to a baby, despite the shame of it being born outside wedlock.

Another young woman is rich and is already promised to a man in marriage. However, she likes to hang around in high society and seduce men to sleep with her. She does what she can to avoid conception, but she conceives a child and aborts it. She later marries the one to whom she was betrothed.

Who has acted more shamefully here? Who has the greater shame in God's eyes? Why should the first be considered a social pariah while the second is allowed to keep her place in society?

The first example has a relevant comparison.  Let's say a man wants to become a priest.  But, no bishop will ordain him.  So, he goes to a doubtfully valid schismatic and gets ordained.  Should we accept his orders?  Should we even allow him to be conditionally ordained?  Should there be no shame regarding his orders?  Traditionally, such a figure if he wanted to pursue a vocation beyond that action would be subject to a monastery as the only option.  And, that would be a mercy.  For, the monastery is a privilege, not a right.  The orphanage is the monastery's parallel in this regard. 

As the old testament saying goes, "God has mercy on the widow and the fatherless".  There is nothing about illegitimate mothers in that passage. 

As for the "strong natural desire" part, you are going to have to back that up with some scripture.  Because, I seem to recall scripture saying that eve or women will have a strong desire for their husbands, not for children.  As a result of the fall, Eve/Women are punished with increased sorrows plural.  I don't see a strong desire on the part of virgins for childbirth as being natural as indicated by the fall.  It is putting the cart before the horse, and that is no natural.

As for the second example.  Don't be feeding us your fairy tales.