Keynote AUCSP Speaker, Notre Dame’s Fr. Daniel Groody, Says Jesus was ‘Born Out of Wedlock’ and was an ‘Illegal Alien’

A keynote speaker at this year’s Association of U.S. Catholic Priests (AUSCP) Assembly has made provocative and heretical comments about Christ that also denigrate the Blessed Virgin Mary, claiming Christ was “born out of wedlock” and was an “illegal alien.”

Fr. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., professor of theology and Vice President and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at the University of Notre Dame, is scheduled to address AUSCP attendees this week.

The AUSCP has long been the subject of concern among faithful Catholics due to its dissent from Catholic doctrine on matters of faith and morals and its promotion of gravely immoral sexual perversions. The Lepanto Institute has documented numerous examples of scandalous positions and problematic speakers associated with the organization.

Given that history, it is not unsurprising that one of this year’s featured speakers has publicly made remarks that misrepresent fundamental Catholic doctrine on the Incarnation, Mary’s perpetual Virginity, and Christ’s Virgin Birth.

During a presentation given March 8, 2024, on immigration and the Incarnation, titled, “A Theology of Migration: the Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ”, Groody stated:

“When this Great Migration happened, of Jesus entering our world, Mary was betrothed to Joseph. And to be found pregnant by somebody other than your betrothed would put Mary outside the law. Joseph has a big issue with this. Who wouldn’t, right? And it raises the question: why did God in Jesus Christ choose to save the world in this way? And to be more specific, why would he actually choose to save the world through an illegal alien? He was illegal cause he was actually born out of wedlock, and he was an alien because he really was from another world.” [Timestamp: 47:22]

Groody’s presentation to AUSCP this week bears the same title as his March 2024 talk on immigration.

The priest’s highly provocative and blasphemous claim that Christ was “born out of wedlock,” however, is wholly incompatible with the Catholic dogma that Christ was miraculously conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, her virginity being preserved intact. It likewise ignores her legitimate betrothal to St. Joseph, by which she was his lawful wife according to Sacred Scripture.

The Church has always taught that Christ’s conception was a miraculous act of God accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit, as the Gospels recount and the Apostles’ Creed clearly states. Our Lady’s perpetual virginity has likewise been continually proclaimed and defended by the Church.

To describe Christ as being “born out of wedlock” is to employ deliberately provocative language with obvious connotations that blasphemously imply illegitimacy and immorality, where the Gospel instead affirms the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, such that Christ would be called “Holy” and “Son of God” (Lk 1:35).

Groody’s claim also ignores Mary’s legal status as Joseph’s betrothed and lawful wife, as affirmed in the Gospels. According to Jewish practice at the time of Christ, betrothal was the first stage of marriage: it was the exchange of the marriage vows prior to living together and constituted the legally binding marital covenant. This is why St. Joseph, upon discovering Mary was with child, considered divorcing her quietly (Mt. 1:19). Had the two merely been engaged in the modern sense, divorce would not have been necessary. Sacred Scripture itself demonstrates that Joseph and Mary were already united by a legitimate marital bond, even though they had not yet begun living together as husband and wife.

Since it is not through another man but by the power of the Holy Spirit that Mary conceives Christ while being betrothed to Joseph, it is within this lawful marriage, not outside of it, that the Incarnation takes place, even though this does not happen through marital union with Joseph. It is therefore wholly inaccurate and blasphemous to say Christ was born “out of wedlock.” Indeed, Mary’s lawful marriage to Joseph protected the holiness of the Incarnation and hid the mystery until Christ willed to reveal it to the world in His public ministry.

To imply either illegitimacy or immorality in Christ’s Incarnation and Virgin Birth is to blaspheme the Incarnate Son of God, the Holy Spirit by whose power the Word was made man, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose sinlessness and perpetual virginity the Church has clearly defined and constantly defended.

Similarly, the claim that Christ was an “illegal alien” is highly provocative and problematic.

According to Groody, Christ was “illegal” because He was “born out of wedlock,” and an “alien” because he was “from another world.” Since it is wholly inaccurate, blasphemous, and heretical to say that the Son of God in His Incarnation was “born out of wedlock,” neither can He be called “illegal.”

Nor can Christ rightly be called an “alien” because he was “from another world.” The term “alien” is a political designation signifying the lack of citizenship within a given country. In no way is the term appropriate to Christ, whom Scripture affirms was born in Bethlehem of Judah because Joseph was of the “house and family of David” (Lk 2:4). Not only was Christ born a Jew among the Jews, but He was born the Son of David and Ruler of the House of Israel, of whom the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary, “The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Lk 1:32-33).

Nor does Christ’s divinity or heavenly origin allow us to call Him an “alien,” since God Himself rules all peoples and nations. Indeed, Scripture gives Christ the pre-eminent titles, “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords,” to whom all nations are given as an inheritance. It is Christ who is Savior of the world and Judge of all peoples and nations. He cannot be “alien” to that which belongs to Him as His own, and over which he rules.

To call the Incarnate Son of God an “illegal alien” is a thinly veiled attempt to subordinate the mystery of the Incarnation to the political agenda of the Marxist left, which advocates for mass migration for the sake of the destabilization of the Christian West. Such politicization of the Gospel and Catholic dogma is both shameful and shallow.

The provocative and blasphemous characterization of Christ as “born out of wedlock” and an “illegal alien” thus runs contrary to Catholic doctrine on the Incarnation and is therefore to be rejected by the faithful. It should likewise disqualify Groody from speaking publicly as a theologian.