{"id":25,"date":"2015-03-23T19:39:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T08:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/uncategorised\/2015\/"},"modified":"2015-03-23T19:39:10","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T08:39:10","slug":"can-priests-adopt-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/ask-a-priest\/2015\/can-priests-adopt-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Can priests adopt children"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"askp-question\"><strong>Hi Father<\/p>\n<p>I am researching for a Catholic based novel and I want to ask a hypothetical question. Are priests allowed to adopt children?  For instance, if a single parent in their parish dies suddenly and there is no one who wants to foster\/adopt the child and the priest feels that God wants him to adopt the child, is this permissable in Catholic law?<\/p>\n<p>I would be really garetful for your answer.<\/p>\n<p>Many<br \/>\nThanks<br \/>\nEowyn<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em class=\"askp-date\">Asked at 07:10 pm on March 23rd 2015<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"askp-answer\">\n<p>Dear Eowyn:<\/p>\n<p>As far as I am aware Canon Law does not deal with this, but it would be very unusual for a priest to adopt a child. The Church maintains that the best environment for a child to grow up in is a family with both a husband and a wife, which is not possible for a priest to provide.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the life of a priest is not suited to being an adoptive father, given that there are many activities that would mean a child would be left alone.<\/p>\n<p>Civil law would also be a factor as I think that in many countries the law prefers two parents if they wish to adopt.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"askp-date\">Replied at 01:29 am on March 24th 2015<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hi Father\n\nI am researching for a Catholic based novel and I want to ask a hypothetical question. Are priests...","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}