Section 1. Defect of Legitimate Birth.

The reason for establishing this irregularity is especially given as threefold: a. reverence of ecclesiastical order, for the illegitimate are reputed vile by reason of origin; b. detestation of the paternal crime, as a sign of which even sons suffer private punishment; c. danger lest sons imitate paternal incontinence.¹

¹ Council of Trent, sess. 25, c. 15, De reform.

481. From Defect of Birth the irregular are the illegitimate, whether the illegitimacy is public or hidden, unless they have been legitimated or have professed solemn vows.¹

a. Those who are born from parents between whom at the time of conception or birth there could exist valid marriage are called natural; those who are born from parents between whom there could not have been valid marriage, such as those born from adultery, sacrilege, or incest, are called spurious.

b. Those who are born when marriage already exists are held legitimate, even if no marriage existed at the time of birth.

1. The doubtfully illegitimate, whose illegitimate origin is not certain, are not irregular; for no one ought to be judged illegitimate unless this is certainly proved. Moreover no one can be deprived of his right of receiving orders unless it is established that he is impeded.

alpha. Therefore exposed children are not irregular per se, and therefore without dispensation they can be ordained. Yet for caution they are usually dispensed if they cannot indicate their parents.

beta. If it is uncertain whether offspring was conceived or at least born after marriage had already been contracted, or rather before, he is not irregular, because he is presumed to have been born after the marriage.

gamma. He who was born in marriage, although from adultery and this known to the husband himself, is not irregular unless he is juridically demonstrated spurious: for the father is he whom the marriage points out.

2. Even hidden illegitimate birth induces irregularity, provided the matter is certain.

¹ Cn. 984, 1.

482. This Irregularity Ceases not only through dispensation as others do, but also through legitimation and through solemn profession.

1. Through legitimation, which is especially done through subsequent marriage. For natural children, if afterward their parents contract legitimate marriage, cease by the law itself to be illegitimate and therefore also irregular. Legitimation is sometimes also done by dispensation from a diriment impediment which stood in the way of marriage, as is said in the treatise on matrimony.

But the spurious, whose parents afterward contract marriage after the impediment has been removed, do not cease to be irregular or illegitimate, because the law does not concede to the spurious a privilege of this kind.

2. Through solemn profession, but not also as regards simple profession unless there is a special privilege such as was granted to the Society of Jesus.

3. Legitimation and solemn profession remove irregularity only as regards orders, but not as regards prelacies, which they cannot obtain unless born from a legitimate marriage. Namely, they cannot obtain the prelacies of the cardinalate, episcopate, abbey or prelacy nullius, and major superior in exempt religion.

alpha. Hence if an illegitimate religious were to be promoted to a prelacy, whether inside or outside the order, he would need dispensation.

beta. Legitimation which civil law introduces cannot remove irregularity; for just as the question of legitimate marriage, so also the question of the legitimacy of offspring belongs to the Church.