A current thread speculates on the possibility of Prince Harry being “illegitimate”, as in being the child of parents not married at the time of his conception. Such persons have usually been unable to inherit European thrones or lordships.
The discussion wanders to a child of a noble who was “illegitimate” because conceived before a subsequent marriage, at which point Diceman comments:
Is this true? Does the RCC, or any other religion, really have a position on such things? I understand that the church considers fornication outside of marriage to be a sin, but does this really confer a status of “illegitimate” upon a child? And if so, what are the practical implications of this? Does it effect either the child or the parents status as a potential Catholic in any way?
As a side note, my Catholic mother often gripes when celebrities receive an “annulment” to circumvent the Catholic ban on divorce and remarriage. “If the marriage was annulled,” she asks, “are the children born of that marriage illegitimate?” Beats me, Mom. What is the answer?
No the Church doen’t not consider children of an annulled marriage to be illegitimate. They recognize the existence of a legal, civil marriage at the time. I’m not sure what they think about children conceived in a second marriage if the first wasn’t annulled.
Does your mother object to annullments in general or only celebrity ones?
“In a declaration of nullity, the Church Tribunal issues a decree that a marriage is invalid. It does not dissolve a marriage, as if it was a type of divorce granted by the Church. It does not mean that the human relationship was void of meaning. It is a ruling of the Church’s court that says that some essential ingredient was lacking in a marriage from the time of consent. It has no civil consequences, and it does not say that no civil marriage existed. It does not render children illegitimate in the Church (canon 1137). Several causes can make a marriage invalid.”
The Church thinks those parents are living in sin. But the newborn children are not to blame for that. Again, if the parents were legally married under civil law, the children are legitimate.
As far as the OP, “does “legitimacy” have any meaning …”: for most of the time humans have lived on this planet, the whole concept of ‘marriage’ did not exist. And much of that time, people did not have enough biological knowledge to understand the connection between sex and conception. (I believe there were some primitive tribes discovered recently who still didn’t understand that.) Many early human societies were matriarchal in inheritance, because only the mother of a child could be known absolutely.
She’s of the opinion that celebrities and wealthy or powerful people are given preference in petitioning for annulments, either because of their status or because they are in a position to give large donations to the church. I have no idea whether this opinion is correct, but that’s a different topic for a different thread.
Note that the Catholic Church, the general civil law, and the royal succession law may come to different conclusions as to illegitimacy. (Throw in “house law” as well for German/Austrian nobility.)
The curious thing is that, as far as I can see, legitimacy and illegitimacy have no consequences in canon law. Legitimate and illegitimate children are treated exactly the same, in all respects, for the purposes of Catholic canon law.
So why have a canonical concept of illegitimacy and go to the trouble of identifying legitimate and illegitimate children? Beats me.
The only think I can think of is that there may still be some civil jurisdictions (Israel?) which defer to the laws of different religious communities as to matters of personal status. So, for example, whether you are married, or legitimate, may for civil purposes be determined by the rules of the particular community to which you belong. Hence canon law may have these rules in order to give determine the status for civil law purposes of Catholics living in these countries.
By Gad, you’re right. It sounds like it still is an impediment to ordination!
Well, I guess I have the answer for my mother–no, children of an annulled marriage are not illegitimate, but yes, the Church does still make the distinction, and it can have consequences. It seems way harsh to me, but I suppose the Church has its reasons.
Farther down in that article, it mentions several ways to overcome this impediment. The person can petition the pope to declare them legitimate (this is the “rescript of the Holy See” mentioned above); joining certain religious orders automatically makes you legitimate; and you can ask for a dispensation (which is basically the Church’s way of saying “never mind”). That last one doesn’t actually make you legitimate, and apparently certain positions (like abbots) cannot held by an illegitimate priest who only has a dispensation.
It seems to me that the Church has been trying to de-emphasize the concept of legitimacy in recent years. I think that this is mostly because, as t-bonham points out, it’s not your fault if you were conceived under less-than-ideal circumstances. It might also be because, well, legitimacy really is mostly about inheritance and who gets the first place in line when it comes time to dole out dad’s stuff.
At least it’s not as bad as Judaism is on the issue of mamzers, which are analogous to bastards. A mamzer is a child born to a married Jewish woman by a Jewish father who is not the woman’s husband. (The child of an unmarried mother, or any child of a non-Jewish mother or father, isn’t a mamzer) There are very real consequences for being a mamzer if you live in Israel- you can’t marry anyone except another mamzer or a convert to Judaism under Israeli law (you can, however, get married in another country and Israel will recognize your marriage when you come back, which is the same thing that other people who for some reason can’t get married in Israel do). The status of mamzer does pass on to the children and descendants of the mamzer.
Mamzers are more common than you might think. Judaism requires a get, or religious divorce, for any divorced person to be able to remarry under Jewish law- a civil divorce isn’t sufficient. If a Jewish woman gets a civil divorce but doesn’t get a religious divorce, and then remarries, her children by the second husband are mamzers, because according to Jewish law she isn’t really divorced from the first husband.
Orthodox Judaism in other countries, and to a large degree in Israel, will generally bend over backwards to avoid declaring someone a mamzer. Conservative Judaism says that rabbis should not inquire into or accept evidence of someone’s status as a mamzer (effectively, that means we don’t recognize the category of mamzer). Reform and other liberal branches of Judaism have dropped the whole concept as archaic.
The idea behind this may have been that, if the laws against adultery aren’t enough to deter a married woman from sleeping with a man who is not her husband, maybe the disadvantages that a potential child would suffer would be a deterrent. Still seems pretty harsh to me, and a lot like punishing children for their parents’ sins, and I’m glad my denomination of Judaism has effectively dropped the concept.
My mom still grumbles now and then about what happened to one of her best friends from childhood, a Catholic girl who married a Catholic guy who turned out to be an abusive drunk. The lady gritted her teeth and tried to make the marriage work, true to her upbringing, but finally called it quits and got an annulment in the mid-1950s. The annulment was on some spurious ground - I don’t even remember which - and my mom still thinks it was grimly ironic that the RCC, supposedly devoted to love and truth, would in essence require those who marry in the faith to lie in order to escape a horrible marriage.