Author Topic: Does marriage remove illegitimacy? (Read 6358 times)

PenitentWoman · « **on:** August 07, 2012, 05:39:27 PM »

If the parent of an illegitimate child gets married (but not to the other biological parent) is the child still considered illegitimate in the eyes of the Catholic church?

Telesphorus · « **Reply #1 on:** August 07, 2012, 07:46:24 PM »

Quote from: PenitentWoman

If the parent of an illegitimate child gets married (but not to the other biological parent) is the child still considered illegitimate in the eyes of the Catholic church?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02579b.htm

Quote

(1) The subsequent marriage of the parents of an illegitimate has, by a fiction of law, a retroactive power which carries the marriage back to the time of the birth of the offspring and covers it with lawful wedlock. In order that the fiction of law may produce this effect, the parents, at the time of the conception or, at least, at the birth of such offspring, must have been capable of contracting lawful marriage. Therefore, this more of legitimation is applicable only to natural illegitimates. And these, though legitimized by the subsequent marriage of the parents, or even by an Apostolic dispensation, are forever excluded from the dignity of the cardinalate.

JohnGrey · « **Reply #2 on:** August 07, 2012, 07:56:33 PM »

Quote from: PenitentWoman

If the parent of an illegitimate child gets married (but not to the other biological parent) is the child still considered illegitimate in the eyes of the Catholic church?

I believe that, according to canon law, the defect of illegitimacy may normatively only be cured by the marriage of the child's parents and even then is only a legal fiction, and there are some other juridical means as well. Subsequent marriage of one parent to a non-parent does not. As I understand it, the question of illegitimacy insofar as a human's relationship to the Church deals primarily with the question of receiving Holy Orders, though practically it does greatly affect one's relationship with others.

PenitentWoman · « **Reply #3 on:** August 07, 2012, 09:11:02 PM »

Telesphorus, thank you for finding that for me. I wasn't sure if newadvent was a reliable website or not.

JohnGrey, I guess maybe I should at least be thankful that I was blessed with a daughter and not a son. That sounds horrible, but at least for a girl it won't create a direct impediment to a possible vocation.

I asked because on the tradition in action website, it says this:

What are the solutions for such a scandalous situation?

The first is marriage. If the woman finds another man of upright character who marries her in the Church and takes her and the child under his custody, her situation is regularized. He covers her shame with his honor and his name.

I was not sure what 'regularized' meant for the child.

This confuses me though:

This confuses me: http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/k011rpUnwedMothers_Stretenovic.html

“The Church, faithful to her traditional policy in favor of marriage, abandons her rigor when the person repairs the fault. It was a strong rigor, indeed, but one can verify that Canon Law, which aims at the reparation of the disorder as much as for its condemnation, is wide open and favors legitimizing [the illegitimate child] by a subsequent marriage”

This, to me, implies subsequent marriage could be to someone other than the natural father. I might be reading it wrong.

Thorn · « **Reply #4 on:** August 07, 2012, 09:57:08 PM »

As I posted before in another thread - Fr. Sretenovic is far from an expert & shouldn't be posting like this on the internet. Personalitywise he's very nice but the facts are that he grew up NO, went to a NO seminary where he was ordained, then went to an independent priest who taught him the TLM. He himself admits that his training was deficient, yet he doesn't go to a traditional seminary for further training for some reason. He's young & inexperienced & under the tutelage of a priest who loves being a one-liner comic in the pulpit - among all his other outside interests.
An illegitimate child will always be known as such, no matter who the mother marries. The mother usually ended up marrying the father, but that's not the case nowadays.