Does the Catholic church consider my (now grown) children to be illegitimate?
I was married to my first wife between 1980 and 1986. The service was non-denominational. During this marriage my two oldest daughters were born. In 1987 I married my current wife. We eloped in Hawaii but came back to marry in the Catholic church. (My wife is Catholic.) But before they would marry us I had to seek an annulment of my first marriage through The Catholic church. This involved paperwork, some of which had to be filled out by my ex and her mother. I felt this was total crap and I didn’t want to do this; I mean, I had be married for six and a half years and had two children from that union! But I did so reluctantly as it meant a lot to my wife to be married in the Catholic church. Anyway, the church granted an “annulment” of my first marriage and ended up marrying us.
So if my first marriage never happened in the eyes of the Catholic church do they consider my two oldest kids bastards? How f***ed-up is that?:
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But… your two oldest children aren’t IN the Catholic church. They’re legitimate by civil standards. Isn’t that fine with them?
Not fine with you? I’m confused.
This is only one of the issues I have with the Catholic church….
yes they probably do…very very sad state of affairs… the whole catholic thing in general… my son is also “illegitimate” so much so that his catholic granddad and grandma disowned him, they’ve never seen him and don’t intend to either (they’re the barsatards if you ask me!)... nice religion…. that’s all I can say…
Who cares what they think? And why do you look just like me?
As far as the catholics are concerned if they’re not baptized they’re going to hell anyway, so what do you care?
Also: what the hell is up with all the avatars here?
Probably. The bastards refused to even baptize me when I was a baby. No one knows why…hell, I’m ITALIAN so my friggin country is where Catholicism started! But they wouldn’t “cleanse my original sin”...whatever. I’m with @dpworkin on this one. You shouldn’t care if they play the “holier than thou” card because many churches have become filled with power-trippin assholes for priests.
“Catholic church”
“fucked up”
Yep.
Who cares what the Catholic church thinks. I think they are corrupt. You know your children aren’t “bastards”, and your children know that too, and that’s all that matters.
@susanc- Actually, my oldest has become Catholic. And whether or not the Catholic church (or anyone else) thinks they are legitimate (what a stupid concept legitimacy is anyway) or not isn’t important to me. I just find the entire idea of a six-year marriage that has produced two children being nullified ridiculous. On the rare occasion I attend church with my wife I can’t help thinking how they have slapped me in the face. I just wonder if they think my kids are somehow illegitimate. That’s all.
Thank God I’m atheist.
I am a bastard parents not married and have never been and I can tell you, it’s a buttload of fun. Whenever anyone uses “bastard” as an insult, I say in a very grave tone, “I am a bastard.” Then they usually get very awkward.
Anyway, yeah, they probably do but ya know what? It means jack shit. Legitimacy and illegitimacy are just labels to make things a little harder for those of us whose mamas and papas ain’t married.
@KatawaGrey- “Legitimacy and illegitimacy are just labels to make things a little harder for those of us whose mamas and papas ain’t married.”
Amen. Just like religion to attack innocent children. (And to think there have been 13 popes who’ve adopted “Innocent” as their name.)
There are people to whom it does matter. It scares me how much power organized religion can have over people’s lives.
@AstroChuck: Interestingly enough, when my mother was trying to get pregnant single mother, artificial insemination one of her biggest supporters was a Catholic priest. His idea about the whole thing was that she was trying to have a child that would be loved so unconditionally it didn’t matter how she had the child. Not all religious people are asses. :)
I have never understood the anullment thing. You were married, obviously had intercourse. I could accepy anullment for a paper marriage but I think the Catholic church is going to have to move with the times and accept divorce. How do they erase 2 children?
Aside from the “Who the hell cares what the Catholic Church thinks?”, I’d like to ask What the hell does it matter for the Catholic Church itself? Are there special rules about what “legitimate” people can do vs what illegitimate cannot? Do illegitimate people automatically go to hell or something?
Basically, what is the effect within the Catholic Church of the Catholic Church considering someone to be illegitimate?
@Chongalicious: The bastards refused to even baptize me when I was a baby.
Were you in italy when they refused that? I’m italian too, i live in italy, and i never heard of someone being refused a baptism, i’m really curious as to why and on what grounds they could refuse it to you. Though, you said nobody knows so i guess i’ll have to settle with that…
I’m sorry, are you looking to make sense out of Catholicism? Why on earth would you do that?
@Thammuz We lived in Connectiut, US. at the time… I still want to know as well because it’s really strange to me.
@faye Catholic anullment is a bit different from civil anullment: you can’t, technically, divorce in the catholic church, and for years divorced couples were refused religious services (at least as far as italy goes).
So in order to remarry you have to have a piece of paper that effectively erases your previous marriage because, as we all know, marriage is “till death do you part”. Or “till expansive bureaucracy procedure do you part”, apparently.
In the mindset of a catholic it makes sense, since the pope has a god given infalliability when talking about religious matters this makes him able to declare religious unins null and void.
How this makes andy lick of sense under any other perspective except “God said so and i know because i have a pointy hat and won a huge tournament of briscola chiamata during the Conclave, thus becoming pope” is WAY beyond me.
@Chongalicious Let me know if you find out, i’m really interested in this.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir i seriously laughed out loud at this one. Mostly because italy by now has practically given up on that topic and decided that catholicism is a general mish-mash of different worldviews some of which don’t even entail respecting the pope’s authority, so it’s more of a reality than a joke really.
@Thammuz I definitely will let you know. It’s been about 18 years though, I doubt I’ll find any new information.
@Thammuz Lots of things about religions are archaic and non-sensical. You take the good with the bad.
I imagine that there’s some way to legitimize them, but there isn’t really much point. It’s Catholics being Catholic, and priggishness about legitimacy is one of the lesser of their excessive legalisms, to say nothing of the outright heresies.
@Nullo and your religion has no such things?
@Nullo Oh, about that, a doozy for you if you didn’t know already: this christmas the pope declared the christmas tree a CHRISTIAN TRADITION. I can’t find any english article on the subject, but i did read it in a newspaper back in december. To corroborate here‘s an article about john paul II explaining how the christmas tree is a symbol of christ, it’s not the same but it’s not so distant. I’ll get back to you if i do find an article.
I don’t have to tall you that the bible openly states not to make christmas trees, right?
@Simone_De_Beauvoir Nope, good doctrine is backed up by Scripture, as Paul encouraged his readers to check his writings against the older ones. My bunch has different troubles.
@Thammuz I can kind of see where he’s coming from; the Christmas Tree was readily adopted, after all. But to say that it originated from Christianity? Not so much.
I can read Italian articles, too :D
@Nullo Well it’s amazing that you don’t see contradictions in the Bible that the rest of us see – I suppose that’s necessary in order to have a firm belief in something
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I’ve found that what people call contradictions are actually cases of context abuse, either willful or not.
@Nullo I agree, to some extent
Isn’t the catholic church now defunct?
@davidbetterman well, the devil has taken over the Vatican, chief exorcist has said
@davidbetterman Oh how i wish that were true.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir No Catholic exorcist would say that and as we all know catholics claim the exclusive on that.
It’s just a big fucking circlejerk all along, really: all the faiths claim they’re the right one and reference themselves as to why, nothing new under the sun on that one. And, for the record, the bible is no exception, Nullo.
They are the most wonderful bastards you have.
The catholic church are the ones missing out. They are the bastards.
Even without the annulment, they probably considered them “bastards” as you weren’t married in the catholic church. It’s stupid.
We (the wife and I) considered our children bastards even though we were married.
Yes. Finally something that you can’t say the same about your children!
@Thammuz
I know a Protestant exorcist. Though it’s more of a task included in his pastoral duties rather than his primary focus.
”all the faiths claim they’re the right one and reference themselves as to why, nothing new under the sun on that one. And, for the record, the bible is no exception, Nullo.”
Eh? When have I said otherwise?
@davidbetterman nice comeback…I am not one of those parents obsessing about whether or not my kids are special or whether or not they’re bastards
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I’m sure your children are quite special. When I said bastards about mine, I wasn’t referring to their parents’ marital status!
@Simone_De_Beauvoir You know my children too? Wow, they do get around. I hope they didn’t break anything of yours, too.
Ok, i have some relevant info. I asked my mother who is the catholic equivalent of a sunday school teacher (e.g. it isn’t on sunday, but the content is pretty much the same), and she says that, officially, the church doesn’t hold in account the “legitimate” vs “illegitimate” labels, here in italy, at least. The only thing that matters is if they’re baptized or not an even then it’s kinda blurry as to what it really means and whatnot.
Make of that what you will.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir He doesn’t say the devil has TAKEN OVER the vatican, he says he does act in it. He’s in the vatican too so he couldn’t possibly include himself in that generalization, at the very least.
@Thammuz
There are those who say that the very Papacy itself is effectively a Satanic institution.
@Nullo Not within the catholic church. Again, the whole thing is self referential, according to the catholics you’re a heretic and if this were the old days you’d probably be burned at the stake or some shit.
@Nullo
There are also those who say the world is flat, the holocaust never happened, the world is divided into a four point time cube and Belgium doesn’t exist.
I think the only sensible point one could make from nameless people saying something is that people can’t be trusted not to be full of shit, until proven otherwise.
@Thammuz Most certainly. I’d have been kindling loooong ago.
@Fyrius I imagine that the reasoning goes thusly:
Given: God created a path for salvation. Satan, being an opportunistic jerk, created many counterfeits.
God’s plan for salvation, as presented in Scripture, has no room for a Pope. Therefore, the Papacy is not God’s idea.
If it’s not God’s idea, it is either Satan’s idea, or Man’s idea through his sinful nature.
Just how Satanic the Papacy is would depend on how much credit you want to give the Evil One.
@Nullo
Oh, I’m sure it’s a consistent set of ideas, given the right assumptions. (And, probably, ignoring some facts here and there.)
But if you don’t mind, I’m not going to take mere consistency in following arbitrary assumptions as proof that these particular nameless people are not full of shit.
@Fyrius I believe that one of the early Protestants – Martin Luther, perhaps, though I’ll have to check it – bore similar sentiments. I’ll let you know when I find out for sure.
@AstroChuck:
The answer to the question is: No. And here’s the proof:
“21. If a marriage is annulled are the children from it considered illegitimate?
No. A declaration of nullity [= IOW, an annullment] has no effect on the legitimacy of children, since the child’s mother and father were presumed to be married at the time that the child was born.”
http://www.nccbuscc.org/laity/marriage/marriagefaqs.shtml
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