Why are children born
out of fornication or adultery called illegitimate?
Answer / Resources:
[click link(s) below, as applicable]
Since "natural law
and positive divine law demand that procreated new life be the fruit of marriage
alone" (Pope Pius XII), those created outside the law care called
illegitimate...
"Illegitimate
is that which is against the law. Now those who are born out of wedlock are born
contrary to the law. Therefore they are illegitimate." (St. Thomas Aquinas,
Doctor of the Church and "greatest theologian in the history of the Church")
Children can be
legitimized, however...
"An
illegitimate child can be legitimized, not so that he be born of a legitimate
intercourse, because this intercourse is a thing of the past and can never be
legitimized from the moment that it was once illegitimate. But the child is said
to be legitimized, in so far as the losses which an illegitimate child ought to
incur are withdrawn by the authority of the law." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of
the Church and "greatest theologian in the history of the Church")
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