Dear Aaron:

Children are always a blessing and always innocent regardless how they were conceived. Each child is a human person with the dignity granted to all human beings even if they were conceived in rape, incest, adultery, fornication, or in any other sin such as in vitro fertilization. The sin of his parents is not the fault of the child. Thus, in the Church, a child is always "legitimate". There are no bastards in the Church. The issue of legitimacy is a civil law issue, not a Church law issue.

As far as the very messy and difficult situation you have described, there are several factors involved.

We know from experience and from scientific study that children who grow up in broken homes do not thrive as well. God created the family for a reason. The preferred and most healthy situation for a child is to be born into a loving intact family.

In this situation, if these people reveal their infidelity to their spouses it will likely damage the marriages, maybe terminate them and thus lead to harm of the children. What is best for all the children in these families, and also for this particular child conceived in adultery, is the consideration.

Both the father and the mother of this child need to discuss this with their confessors. All factors must be taken under consideration and I cannot know what all those factors may be.

If the decision is to raise the child by the mother and her husband without involvement from the child's father, the child's father can contribute to his child's welfare through, for example, establishing a Trust Fund or a College Fund that he would deposit money for the child.

The effects should be considered of subjecting the child to visitation rights and being pulled back and forth between households. On the other hand, the child, eventually, as the right to know of his biological father. Perhaps when the child is old enough he can be introduced to his father.

This is a profoundly complicated situation. Sin usually does cause complicated consequences. Unfortunately, this child will suffer from his parents' sin no matter what decision is made.

I really cannot answer the question. This situation is too complicated and must be prayerfully considered considering all factors that only the confessors, or a pastoral counselor speaking to both of them, are in position to know.

There is one thing I can answer: 1) The child is not at fault for anything here; 2) the child is a blessing; 3) the child is not a bastard; 4) the child's soul is not directly effected by the sin of his parents; 5) the mother may have the child baptized like usual, even if the biological father is not involved, as long as she intends to raise the child Catholic. 

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary