Adoption-is It An Impediment To A Religious Vocation?

[A Yearning Heart]

I've run across a few instances where this has been an issue. Personally, I don't really see why this would matter.

[brendan1104]

It doesn't anymore.

[littlesister]

It might "matter" as a formality (medical history, etc.) but rarely would be an obstacle to being accepted. In an earlier time it could have been a major problem, but not today.

[A Yearning Heart]

I'm glad it isn't a problem anymore Thanks guys!

[jkaands]

I don't know about adoption but it was an impediment if for some reason you were illegitimate.

Recently, in the last few years, I have seen one community, where applicants had to submit not only a copy of their [i]own[/i] birth certificate, but a copy of their parents' [i]wedding [/i]certificate as well.

Hmmmm......

[catholicinsd]

[quote name='jkaands' post='1481534' date='Mar 22 2008, 09:52 AM']Recently, in the last few years, I have seen one community, where applicants had to submit not only a copy of their [i]own[/i] birth certificate, but a copy of their parents' [i]wedding [/i]certificate as well.[/quote]

That community doesn't want any new novices.

[T-Bone _]

[quote name='catholicinsd' post='1481644' date='Mar 22 2008, 11:06 AM']That community doesn't want any new novices.[/quote]

Way to be judgmental there...

[MC IMaGiNaZUN]

I guess its a past matter.

The assumption is that God only calls people from good upstanding catholic families.

everyone else is suspect.

where I am from I hardly know any good upstanding catholic families. besides I think God calls the weak to shame the strong.

SHALOM
Bro Mark

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

[quote name='catholicinsd' post='1481644' date='Mar 22 2008, 02:06 PM']That community doesn't want any new novices.[/quote]


Up until the 1983 code of canon law the marriage certificate of parents was required.

Adoption was never an impediment although being "illegitimate" was considered one but was a minor thing and dispension was easily obtained. However, it did have "negative"conotations in the past which pretty much mirrored society.

Please be careful of jumping to negative conclusions about a religious community and their request for information of a candidate. A religious community has every right to inquire into the background of a person requesting admission. None of us comes to the door tabula rasa.

I was adopted as a baby so I do have some personal experience in this area.

I've refrained from commenting much on this forum for various reasons but I think that this is one area when erroneous information can get spread around.

If you have questions of this sort, really the best thing is to ASK them of the vocation director of the communities you are in contact with or a diocesan vocation director.

In Christ,
Sr. Mary Catharine

[Autumn Dusk]

The only problem I could see is that there would be an underlying mental health issue. I work in the darker side of adoption occasionally, with fetal alcohol kids or attachment disorder kids and its really horrible...and often undetectable except for those closest to them.

However, this should be taken with a grain of sand as just about everyone in developed countries are prone to mental problems due to the diet, excercize and upbringing.

[DameAgnes]

An adopted family member has been a happy Capuchin friar for lo these many years. Glad to see sound answers to the questions.

[gloriagurl]

[quote name='Sr. Mary Catharine' post='1481754' date='Mar 22 2008, 04:32 PM']Up until the 1983 code of canon law the marriage certificate of parents was required.

Adoption was never an impediment although being "illegitimate" was considered one but was a minor thing and dispension was easily obtained. However, it did have "negative"conotations in the past which pretty much mirrored society.

Please be careful of jumping to negative conclusions about a religious community and their request for information of a candidate. A religious community has every right to inquire into the background of a person requesting admission. None of us comes to the door tabula rasa.[/quote]
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I agree, communities have the right to ask for information. I'm going to hope, Sister Mary Catherine that you are not defending the rejection of a candidate based on "illegitimacy" (at any time in history) but that you are merely pointing out a community's right to know who a candidate "is". If this is the case then I apologize in advance for what I am about to write.

If you or anyone else is defending the position that "illegitimate" children are or ever were unfit for religious life simply based on that "societal designation" then I offer no apology of any kind.

Sometimes I'm not sure what else to do but simply sigh in frustration when I encounter some of the positions put forth in this phorum. The act of judging the vocational "fitness" of a person to a particular community (which is what communities have the right to do and must do) based on the "prior bad acts" of a person's PARENTS is indefensible. It's one thing to request information, it's quite another to act immorally based on that information. A child doesn't get adopted because of something he/she did but because of something his/her parents did or didn't do, or perhaps even because of something that was outside the parents control - like rape or death. To defend an immoral act simply because it mirrored society is heinous, victimizing, dangerous behavior. That's like saying it's OK for religious communities to hide (or protect from prosecution) it's sexually abusive members because society hides and protects them (which society does and and always has done......more often than any religious community).


Christ's Church and the organizations she approves, holds and cherishes in her heart ought to be LEADING society to moral standards rooted in the Gospel, not FOLLOWING in the footsteps of their failures and sins. We won't, as individuals or communities be perfect, but neither do we have to defend our failure to be all that we're meant to be in Christ.

It might do us well to remember that we are all adopted sons and daughters as far as God is concerned.

(edited for typo)

Edited March 27, 2008 by Lil Red

[catholicinsd]

[quote name='T-Bone _' post='1481645' date='Mar 22 2008, 01:08 PM']Way to be judgmental there...[/quote]

And that community isn't being judgemental?

[stlmom]

I don't think Sr. M. Catherine was defending that particular practice, just explaining it and the source. I have seen old copies of guides to religious orders published in the '40s and '50s, and it seems that many communities looked very dimly on "illegitimacy". It was the common thinking of those times, unfortunately. Some communities had admission criteria that were downright odd, when viewed from our current perspectives, and I will not go into them here. It may be one of the better reforms of religious orders of the past 40 years that we don't stigmatize a candidate this way. I will bet the farm that this criteria of legitimate birth is rarely applied any more.

[gloriagurl]

[quote name='stlmom' post='1483063' date='Mar 24 2008, 02:23 PM']I don't think Sr. M. Catherine was defending that particular practice, just explaining it and the source. I have seen old copies of guides to religious orders published in the '40s and '50s, and it seems that many communities looked very dimly on "illegitimacy". It was the common thinking of those times, unfortunately. Some communities had admission criteria that were downright odd, when viewed from our current perspectives, and I will not go into them here. It may be one of the better reforms of religious orders of the past 40 years that we don't stigmatize a candidate this way. I will bet the farm that this criteria of legitimate birth is rarely applied any more.[/quote]

It's true the guides do say those things. I own one or two of those old "guides".....I know the practice existed and that communities looked very dimly at "illegitimacy"......I also know that it most likely does not exist any longer (one can hope)....what I was responding to is the implication that this behavior was OK, because it "mirrored society".......as if it's OK for the Church to hold and practice the same corrupt morals as the society around her.

Our earthly mothers certainly know to teach their children not to follow any crowds to destruction......I'm sure you've heard a mom ask something like "....if everybody else jumped off the Empire State building...would....".

The practice of rejecting illegitimate children (truth be told, there are no illegitimate CHILDREN, only illegitimate PARENTS as it was the parents who were breaking the law of the land by having children out of wedlock) was never morally right and never will be. To simply explain it so as to defend communities and make no statement as to at least the SADNESS of such a practice, in my opinion is to defend the practice as well - at least in some sense.

(edited for typo)

Edited March 24, 2008 by gloriagurl