Adoption

[puellapaschalis]

Help me please pham, I'm having a brain f*art (I don't know if the word "fluffy air extraction" is verba non gratia here).

(ETA: I guess it's not )

Is adoption of children "allowed" by Catholic teaching?

I ask because I could have [i]sworn[/i] that I read a Church doc that said that adoption was not a good thing. Whether the phrase "contrary to natural law" was used I'm no longer sure. The CCC states that infertile couples may (for instance?) adopt [i]abandoned[/i] children (I think sometimes that word is interpreted rather....broadly), but that para. (2379 I think) is the only reference to it, and now it's annoying me!

So - docs, refs, anyone?

Edited May 15, 2009 by puellapaschalis

[Innocent]

Since there is a [url="http://httpyavww.knight.org/cathen/01147b.htm"]CE article on Canonical Adoption[/url], it looks like the Church is okay with adoption.

Further, while I was on the New Advent website, I thought I might as well look up the Summa, and I found that there's a Question on [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5057.htm"]"Legal relationship, which is by adoption"[/url]

Also, isn't St. Joseph commonly known as "The Foster Father of Jesus?" ([url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0503fea3.asp"]article on St. Joseph's fatherhood with various mentions of him being Jesus' adoptive father.[/url])

St. Thomas More had an adopted daughter, [url="http://associationtrencavel.tripod.com/sirthomasmore/id2.html"]Margaret Clements[/url]:

[quote]The hair shirt, worn by him for many years and sent to Margaret Roper the day before his martyrdom, is preserved by the Augustinian canonesses of Abbots Leigh, Devonshire, to whom it was brought by Margaret Clements, the adopted child of Sir Thomas.[/quote] ([url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14689c.htm"]CE[/url])

From what I read in [url="http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/mcgovern/tmtruly.htm"]another article[/url], it's possible that Margaret Clements was not his only adopted child:

[quote]In a letter dated 23 March 1521 from the court of Henry VIII, he began with the salutation: 'Thomas More to his whole school, greeting.' Apart from his own childen — Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily and John — the More household included several others, either adopted or fostered, who were as dear to him as his own children — his step-daughter Alice Middleton, a foster child Margaret Giggs, and Anne Creseacre, a ward of court who was adopted by More.[/quote]

Also, aren't there several orphanages run by Religious Orders? They encourage adoption, I'm sure.

The [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11322b.htm"]CE article on Orphans and Orphanages[/url] notes that adoption has been a honoured practice in the Church from ancient times:

[quote]The widows and deaconesses of the early church took orphans into their homes as Fabiola did in Rome. Some believe that the terms widow and orphan are so often found joined in ancient Christian literature because of this custom. It was the general practice at the time of the first persecutions. Uhlhorn (Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, p. 185) says: "It would also often happen that individual members of the Church would receive orphans, especially those whose parents had perished in a persecution." Thus was Origen adopted, after Leonidas, his father, had suffered martyrdom, by a pious woman in Alexandria (Eusebius, Church History VI.2). Again the child of the female martyr, Felicitas, found a mother; and Eusebius tells us of Severus, a Palestinian composer, who especially interested himself in the orphans and widows of those who had fallen. In the Apostolic Constitutions members of the Church are urgently exhorted to such acts. "If any Christian, whether boy or girl, be left an orphan, it is well if one of the brethren, who has no child, receives and keeps him in a child's place. They who do so perform agood work by becoming fathers to the orphans and will be rewarded by God for this service". The taking of an orphan to rear, and giving it a place in a new family circle has always been an honoured custom amongst good people in all times. In simple communities it is the sole solution of a distressing problem. When in modern times a war or an extraordinary disaster created an embarrassment by reason of the number to be cared for, the organized asylum has been a blessing.[/quote]

One blog I sometimes read is [url="http://mommymonsters.blogspot.com/"]Mommy Monsters Inc.[/url] written by someone named Heidi Hess Saxton. She writes columns on Adoptive Parenting. I found her blog through [url="http://www.catholicmom.com/saxton.htm"]CatholicMom.com[/url]. You'll find a lot of articles on adoption there.

In the very beautiful film [i]The Tree of Wooden Clogs[/i] by Ermanno Olmi, which shows the lives of some Catholic farmers working under an Italian landlord, a newlywed couple is shown adopting a baby from a convent where the bride's aunt is a nun. That scene was so touching. It was so easy for them to make room in their hearts and adopt a child! And on the next day of their wedding, too!

Edited May 15, 2009 by Innocent

[StColette]

The only time I can see the Church using the phrase "contrary to natural law" is in regard to homosexual couples or individuals applying to adopt children or the adoption of embryos. The Church, through many religious orders, work with a number of different orphanages. I can think of or find a single Church document which says adoption is a bad thing.

[MithLuin]

What you likely read was a Vatican document stating that the adoption of [i]embryos[/i] was 'contrary to natural law.'

The question arose because many IVF clinics produce more embryos than they use/implant, so there are frozen embryos laying around waiting to be...discarded.

The Catholic Church of course does not support IVF and says that the embryos should not have been created in that manner, and just because they 'already exist' does not mean an infertile couple could/should 'adopt' them rather than let them be abandoned.



In other words, the Church has no issue with adoption (agreeing to parent a child who is not biologically your own), but [i]does[/i] take issue with beginning pregnancies outside the marital embrace.

[puellapaschalis]

You're all great, thanks for putting me straight

(this is what happens when you have the CCC as bedtime reading as a very stressed and over-tired teenager Your brain mixes up paras )

[Theoketos]

I am an adopted son of God.

[StColette]

[quote name='Theoketos' post='1867921' date='May 15 2009, 10:43 AM']I am an adopted son of God.[/quote]

lol yes, see God likes adoption

[Slappo]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1867904' date='May 15 2009, 06:57 AM']What you likely read was a Vatican document stating that the adoption of [i]embryos[/i] was 'contrary to natural law.'

The question arose because many IVF clinics produce more embryos than they use/implant, so there are frozen embryos laying around waiting to be...discarded.

The Catholic Church of course does not support IVF and says that the embryos should not have been created in that manner, and just because they 'already exist' does not mean an infertile couple could/should 'adopt' them rather than let them be abandoned.



In other words, the Church has no issue with adoption (agreeing to parent a child who is not biologically your own), but [i]does[/i] take issue with beginning pregnancies outside the marital embrace.[/quote]

I'm 99% sure there is nothing official out on whether or not an embryo can be implanted in a woman for the purpose of saving his/her (the embryo's) life. My seminar class brought this topic up last semester at Franciscan University.


The argument in favor of implanting the embryo is that although the woman [b]is becoming pregnant[/b] outside of the marital embrace, she is not participating in an [b]act of conception[/b] outside of the marital embrace. Therefore some even consider it an act of mercy to implant an embryo.

Edited May 15, 2009 by Slappo

[Innocent]

[quote name='Theoketos' post='1867921' date='May 15 2009, 09:13 PM']I am an adopted son of God.[/quote]

That - Divine Filiation through Adoption - is the core of the Opus Dei spirituality, upon which foundation is placed the sanctification of the ordinary life. I find that very invigorating.

[Innocent]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1867904' date='May 15 2009, 08:27 PM']What you likely read was a Vatican document stating that the adoption of [i]embryos[/i] was 'contrary to natural law.'[/quote]

Is it was [url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html"]Dignitas Personae[/url] that you mean?

[Slappo]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1867943' date='May 15 2009, 08:26 AM']Is it was [url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html"]Dignitas Personae[/url] that you mean?[/quote]

Articles 18 and 19 of the document deal with frozen embryo's.
Article 19 quotes JPII saying there seems to be no morally licit action to take place, but I think there has to be something morally licit otherwise it would be a sinful action no matter what we did with them.

[StColette]

The proposal that these embryos could be put at the disposal of infertile couples as a treatment for infertility is not ethically acceptable for the same reasons which make artificial heterologous procreation illicit as well as any form of surrogate motherhood;[38] this practice would also lead to other problems of a medical, psychological and legal nature.

It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of “prenatal adoption”. [b]This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.[/b]

I think it's clear that embryo adoption would be wrong for the same reasons as ivf is wrong, which Dignitas Personae states.

[Slappo]

[quote name='StColette' post='1867969' date='May 15 2009, 08:26 AM']The proposal that these embryos could be put at the disposal of infertile couples as a treatment for infertility is not ethically acceptable for the same reasons which make artificial heterologous procreation illicit as well as any form of surrogate motherhood;[38] this practice would also lead to other problems of a medical, psychological and legal nature.

It has also been proposed, solely in order to allow human beings to be born who are otherwise condemned to destruction, that there could be a form of “prenatal adoption”. [b]This proposal, praiseworthy with regard to the intention of respecting and defending human life, presents however various problems not dissimilar to those mentioned above.[/b]

I think it's clear that embryo adoption would be wrong for the same reasons as ivf is wrong, which Dignitas Personae states.[/quote]

The document does not give a morally licit solution to the problem either, also the document is not infallible. Yes there are definitely complications that have to be considered, [b]and I would never advocate it as something one should do until there is further development both scientifically [u]and further instruction given by the Church on the matter[/u].[/b]

I do think that the Church has to come up with some morally licit action to take regarding these lives and the only one that seems at all possible would be the implantation within a woman.




EDIT: As for there being nothing official out about it. I have to concede as obviously there is. I do think though that in time the Church may change this too.
I'll have to e-mail my theology professor about how we dealt with this in seminar because I forget!

Edited May 15, 2009 by Slappo

[Slappo]

Back on topic: I don't see how the adoption of a frozen embryo is really any different in principle then the adoption of a post natal child. Maybe someone can explain?

Since Dignitas Personae doesn't [b]actually[/b] say why it's wrong and only says for reasons not dissimilar to those above. Really what does that mean?

[virginiancatholic]

Adoption of children in and of itself is not bad, especially for the child who has been abandoned because the Church recognizes being raised in a nuclear family as a good and patterned after the Trinity. Also, since the Church recognizes relationship-by-adoption as an impediment to marriage, it would seem to indicate that it is alright according the Church.

As for the embryo adoption thing, we discussed this very thing in my selected problems in ethics class last year....and have discussed it numerous times in my nursing classes because not only does this concern us as Catholics but also as health care professionals.

I don't have any documents to site, but if my memory serves me, I believe the problem is that we now have thousands of frozen embryos who, though their creation was unnatural and brought on in an immoral way, they remain persons made in the image and likeness of God. The ongoing debate is the question of what is the moral thing to do with them, now that they've been created? Can we just throw them away, or should we baptize them and let them die a natural death? Or is it legitimate to "save" them in the manner discussed above in this thread?

It seems that the Church has been slightly reticent to come out on this issue because though implanting them in an adoptive mother's womb may be be a viably moral option (I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying it might be), they don't want to say so for fear that the declaration would be blown out of proportion and misconstrued to many Catholics so that they may think that IVF is now alright.

The complication here is that the frozen embryos are people, not merely a group of "potential stem cells with the orientation toward developing a viable life."


It is different than the postnatal adoption for the simple reason that you are conceiving within the wife's womb a child that was not conceived through "ordinary" means. She is medically being injected with an embryo which is not yours or hers.

I don't think the end result is really different. The means are what changes the situation.

Edited May 15, 2009 by virginiancatholic