Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Anσnymσus Posts Allowed => Topic started by: Änσnymσus on June 25, 2019, 10:42:00 AM
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Is it Catholic for infertile couples to adopt children?
I have never heard of canonized married saints who adopted. Are there any?
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EXTREMELY MERITORIOUS!!!
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EXTREMELY MERITORIOUS!!!
St William of Perth:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Perth (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Perth)
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St. Joseph (Foster-gather to Jesus).
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St. Joseph (Foster-gather to Jesus).
I meant foster-father
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St Thomas More had several foster children:
http://www.tudorsdynasty.com/children-wards-sir-thomas-more/ (http://www.tudorsdynasty.com/children-wards-sir-thomas-more/)
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Than to have an innocent child potentially (God forbid) be corrupted by two sodomites or a Communist snowflake and her antitheist partner? Potentially being raised by two people who spit on the Holy Name of Christ rather than revere and adore it?
Yes, it is absolutely Catholic. You're raising a household where everyone could be saved, instead of a household where if everyone died at noon today, Central Daylight Time, not one soul would see the face of God. Not a single soul in that walls, that child included, would have any discernible chance of ever getting to Heaven.
If it is possible financially, then absolutely. There are thousands of children that need a mother and a father to rear them in the ways of God. The child given to an infertile, loving Catholic family could be the priest that gives them viaticuм at the end of their lives. We need more Catholic families in the world to combat the rise of evil.
O Lord, grant us holy Catholic families.
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St Thomas More had several foster children
He wasn't infertile; he had his own biological children.
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St William of Perth:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Perth (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Perth)
He married?
St. Benedict, too, adopted Saints Maurus and Placidus.
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St. Joseph (Foster-gather to Jesus).
St. Joseph was in a virginal, not infertile, marriage.
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EXTREMELY MERITORIOUS!!!
More so than remaining continent?
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More so than remaining continent?
For you, I think we would all be better off if you remained continent.
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St. Thomas very clearly says Whether adoption is rightly defined? (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5057.htm#article1) (obj. 4): "one who is unable to beget...is not competent to adopt."
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For you, I think we would all be better off if you remained continent.
St. Thomas says, discussing the marriage debt (objection 2 of q. 64 a. 2 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm#article2)), that "even for married people it is better to be continent than to make use of marriage".
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Is it Catholic for infertile couples to adopt children
A curious question! I wonder why you ask it. With respect, do you really think it could possibly be against the faith?
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As an aside, I know a Catholic couple who were infertile. They adopted John, and before he was 12 months old she had delivered twins girls. There can be various reasons for infertility, and it seems it this case it was a psychological or emotional matter. John solved the problem for them and they made a happy Catholic family.
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St. Thomas very clearly says Whether adoption is rightly defined? (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5057.htm#article1) (obj. 4): "one who is unable to beget...is not competent to adopt."
Now one who is unable to beget, through being a eunuch or impotent, suffers especially from the absence of children of his own begetting. Therefore he is especially competent to adopt someone as his child. But he is not competent to adopt. Therefore adoption is not the taking of someone as one's child.
??? This makes no sense to me. It seems in one sentence he is saying that someone who is unable to beget is competent to adopt, and then he says the complete opposite in the next sentence?
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Now one who is unable to beget, through being a eunuch or impotent, suffers especially from the absence of children of his own begetting. Therefore he is especially competent to adopt someone as his child. But he is not competent to adopt. Therefore adoption is not the taking of someone as one's child.
??? This makes no sense to me. It seems in one sentence he is saying that someone who is unable to beget is competent to adopt, and then he says the complete opposite in the next sentence?
First, I must point out that you're quoting the objection rather than the reply to said objection.
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However, that doesn't really clear much up. It seems to me, from a quick reading of this entry, that adoption at that time was not for the sake of the child, but for the sake of a grieving adult (due to loss of a biological child). So, you'd only be eligible to adopt if you've lost a biological child or grandchild.
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Seems very odd to me as it's quite different now, but that's what it seems to be saying. If I'm not reading it correctly, feel free to explain it to me. : )
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First, I must point out that you're quoting the objection rather than the reply to said objection.
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However, that doesn't really clear much up. It seems to me, from a quick reading of this entry, that adoption at that time was not for the sake of the child, but for the sake of a grieving adult (due to loss of a biological child). So, you'd only be eligible to adopt if you've lost a biological child or grandchild.
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Seems very odd to me as it's quite different now, but that's what it seems to be saying. If I'm not reading it correctly, feel free to explain it to me. : )
Still lost here. Maybe someone else can explain it.
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It doesn't matter what St Thomas said 600-700 years ago, adoption today is supported by the Church both philosophically and through Her many Catholic charities. St Thomas lived in the middle ages, the most Catholic time in all of history. Probably weren't too many orphan children or unwanted pregancies in his day. Any children who were born out of wedlock were taken care of by the extended family, who normally lived close together and operated as a team.
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There were many orphans and bastards in St. Thomas's day. Taking in a foundling either as ones adopted child or as a live in servant was not uncommon.
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Now one who is unable to beget, through being a eunuch or impotent, suffers especially from the absence of children of his own begetting. Therefore he is especially competent to adopt someone as his child. But he is not competent to adopt. Therefore adoption is not the taking of someone as one's child.
??? This makes no sense to me. It seems in one sentence he is saying that someone who is unable to beget is competent to adopt, and then he says the complete opposite in the next sentence?
That translation uses the same word to translate two distinct words of the Latin:
Super Sent., lib. 4 d. 42 q. 2 a. 1 arg. 4 (http://www.corpusthomisticuм.org/snp4037.html#20995):
ille qui non potest generare, ut spado vel frigidus, maxime patitur defectum in filiis naturalibus. Ergo ei maxime competit assumere in filium aliquem. Sed non competit adoptare ei.
The sense is that the impotent (note: he doesn't say sterilis, but spado vel frigidus or "eunuch or frigid (person)", which is impotency) should be entitled to children (maxime competit assumere or "most entitled to assume"), but they should not be able to adopt (presumably because of their impotence).
So, St. Thomas argues that the impotent (not the infertile) should not be able to adopt. Perpetual impotency impedes marriage anyways.
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impotent (not the infertile)
Well, "non potest generare" ("cannot generate"), so it's not so clear.
St. Thomas's understanding of adoption is that it is to replace lost children (not children never had):I answer that ... one person (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11726a.htm) can take to himself another as a child in likeness to one that is his child by nature (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10715a.htm), in order to take the place of the children he has lost, this being the chief reason why adoption was introduced
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St. Thomas's understanding of adoption is that it is to replace lost children (not children never had):
This is corroborated by hisReply to Objection 4. ... greater is sorrow for children lost than for children one has never had. Wherefore those who are impeded from begetting need no solace for their lack of children as those who have had and have lost them
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Reply to Objection 4. ... greater is sorrow for children lost than for children one has never had. Wherefore those who are impeded from begetting need no solace for their lack of children as those who have had and have lost them, or could have had them but have them not by reason of some accidental (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01096c.htm) impediment.
Sterility/infertility would be an "accidental impediment".
In summary:
- Adoption is chiefly for replacing lost children.
- The impotent cannot adopt.
- St. Thomas doesn't deny the sterile/infertile can adopt.
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This is St Thomas' opinion but it's not the Church's, so his opinion doesn't matter in this case. This isn't a moral issue but a social one, therefore his opinion is outdated.
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This is St Thomas' opinion but it's not the Church's, so his opinion doesn't matter in this case. This isn't a moral issue but a social one, therefore his opinion is outdated.
I don't know that we can rule it out as a "social" issue because if he is saying the only couples who can not adopt are those where there is impotence there could be a moral issue here as well given impotence nullifies marriage.
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Sterility/infertility would be an "accidental impediment".
In summary:
- Adoption is chiefly for replacing lost children.
- The impotent cannot adopt.
- St. Thomas doesn't deny the sterile/infertile can adopt.
Thank you for this. I wish you hadn't posted anonymously.
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I don't know that we can rule it out as a "social" issue because if he is saying the only couples who can not adopt are those where there is impotence there could be a moral issue here as well given impotence nullifies marriage.
Impotence only nullifies marriage if it's known at the time of marriage. One can become impotent after.
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You would be correct if the Church has such rules in place for those who wish to adopt. St Thomas is a teacher; he is not a law maker. Only the Church makes laws.
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I wonder why you ask it.
Seeking counsel as to whether it's something my wife and I are called to
With respect, do you really think it could possibly be against the faith?
The hispanic culture seems to frown upon it. In fact, in Mexico the only way to adopt is if the child is a true orphan; both parents must be deceased.
The Abelites, whom St. Augustine condemned (http://www.augustinus.it/latino/eresie/eresie_libro.htm#HA_001_087_087), were a very strange sect of married, perpetually continent couples who each adopted a boy and a girl:
LXXXVII. (http://pm.nlx.com/xtf/view?docId=augustine_i/augustine_i.05.xml;chunk.id=div.aug.arianism.31;toc.id=div.aug.arianism.31;brand=default#pb-55) There is, or rather there was, an unsophisticated heresy in our countryside, that is, around Hippo. It gradually diminished, but continued to exist in a single small village, in which only a few people, but the whole population, were its members. Now all of these have been corrected and have become Catholics, and no one from that error survives. They were called the Abeloim in the Punic form of the name. Some say that they were named after the son of Adam who was called Abel; hence, we can also call them Abelians or Abeloites.
They did not have intercourse with their wives, and they were, nonetheless, not permitted by the teaching of this sect to live without wives. Husbands and wives, therefore, lived together under the vow of chastity and, by the agreement of their union, adopted for themselves a boy and a girl to be their successors. If any of these died, others were chosen to take their place, provided, of course, that two of the opposite sex took the place of the other two in the same household. If either of the parents died, the children served the one remaining until he or she also died. After that parent's death, they likewise adopted a boy and a girl. There was never a lack of children for them to adopt, since their neighbors on all sides bore children and gladly gave them their poor children in the hope that they would become their heirs.
Were they incestuous, or is St. Augustine condemning their practice of adoption, their vow of chastity, or both?
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Thank you for answering my question so fully.
Whether or not you are without a child, and I am presuming that you have been able to bear any child, there is nothing in this writing that condemns adoption, per se, but rather the misuse of marriage, which God ordained for the begetting of children, not for permanent abstinence.
Obviously, there are children out there who are without parents, and this is a disorder in society which you could take a part in putting right. How could the Catholic Church condemn it?
Mexican mores are not Catholic teaching. God bless you!
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This seems like a silly question: of course Catholic couples, infertile, sterile, or not, can adopt children! That's the whole point of adoption, to place orphans and other children given up for adoption into good, two-parent, Catholic homes.
We're so used to being against adoption for sodomites, that we forget that adoption is normally a great thing. But we're against adoption for sodomites because A) they will corrupt any children with their perversion, and B) a child needs a father and a mother.
Matthew
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Is it Catholic for infertile couples to adopt children?
I have never heard of canonized married saints who adopted. Are there any?
I've never heard of a SINGLE Catholic saint who had a smartphone, or even a cell phone of any kind.
Ergo, cell phones must be evil and mortally sinful.
Just using your own logic there, champ.
Seriously, though, there aren't many canonized married saints. I think that's the primary problem. The secondary problem is that whatever such saints we have, are 200+ years ago, so many aspects of their life we can't follow, since their culture and milieu was so different from our own.
I wouldn't hold up Zelie Martin (the mother of St. Therese the Little Flower) as a role model for ANY Trad Catholic mother. Zelie might have been a good Catholic mother, and she might be in heaven right now, but it wasn't because of her cultural mothering practices. I think she hired a wet nurse for her kids, and went to work.
She would have been criticized by your typical Trad couple, and rightly so! She didn't stay at home, breastfeeding, raising and homeschooling her children. THAT is the ideal, but she fell WAY, WAY short in this department.
Matthew
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This seems like a silly question: of course Catholic couples, infertile, sterile, or not, can adopt children! That's the whole point of adoption, to place orphans and other children given up for adoption into good, two-parent, Catholic homes.
We're so used to being against adoption for sodomites, that we forget that adoption is normally a great thing. But we're against adoption for sodomites because A) they will corrupt any children with their perversion, and B) a child needs a father and a mother.
Matthew
Indeed, I have no idea how this is even a question. It's a very commendable thing for a Catholic couple to offer a chance at salvation to such children. Now, the temptation would be to live the "easy life", since raising children is very hard work, and comes with many crosses. So their sacrifice of such a life to adopt and raise some children would be a noble thing indeed.
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More so than remaining continent?
What are you talking about? How are being continent and adopting children mutually exclusive?
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I wouldn't hold up Zelie Martin (the mother of St. Therese the Little Flower) as a role model for ANY Trad Catholic mother. Zelie might have been a good Catholic mother, and she might be in heaven right now, but it wasn't because of her cultural mothering practices. I think she hired a wet nurse for her kids, and went to work.
She would have been criticized by your typical Trad couple, and rightly so! She didn't stay at home, breastfeeding, raising and homeschooling her children. THAT is the ideal, but she fell WAY, WAY short in this department.
Matthew
In her defense, she only hired a wet nurse when she wasn't able to breast feed. I think she probably breast fed her first few (I don't remember), but with later babies she wasn't able to give them enough milk. I think her inability to nurse enough may have been related to the eventual breast cancer which killed her. It was a heartbreak for her to not be able to nurse her own children. Also, she didn't leave home to go to some office & work; she had a home business of lace-making, which her husband eventually took over. She was home all the time. The children were partly homeschooled, partly sent to a convent school for some of their schooling.
The Story of a Family is a good book to get a good idea what she was like.
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Seriously, though, there aren't many canonized married saints. I think that's the primary problem.
Whose problem?
The reason there aren't as many canonized married saints is because it's more difficult to achieve high levels of sanctity in the married state.The secondary problem is that whatever such saints we have, are 200+ years ago, so many aspects of their life we can't follow, since their culture and milieu was so different from our own.
Modernists give this same argument for why saints are no longer imitable, essentially claiming they were backwards, primitive, un-evolved humans with psychological disorders and living in times of superstition, and "we enlightened ones know better now"...I wouldn't hold up Zelie Martin (the mother of St. Therese the Little Flower) as a role model for ANY Trad Catholic mother. Zelie might have been a good Catholic mother, and she might be in heaven right now, but it wasn't because of her cultural mothering practices. I think she hired a wet nurse for her kids, and went to work.
She developed breast cancer, and certainly had a valid reason to use a wet nurse. Also, she worked at home.
Wet nurses aren't anything new. In the 14th cen., St. Catherine of Siena's mother, Mona Lapa, gave St. Catherine's twin sister to a wet nurse.
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I wouldn't hold up Zelie Martin (the mother of St. Therese the Little Flower) as a role model for ANY Trad Catholic mother. Zelie might have been a good Catholic mother, and she might be in heaven right now, but it wasn't because of her cultural mothering practices. I think she hired a wet nurse for her kids, and went to work.
She would have been criticized by your typical Trad couple, and rightly so! She didn't stay at home, breastfeeding, raising and homeschooling her children. THAT is the ideal, but she fell WAY, WAY short in this department.
Matthew
Zelie Martin had breast cancer and had begun to waste away. How was she supposed to feed her child? As for her lace business she worked at home.