VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is planning to publish a Vatican document on marriage after ongoing issues with polygamy in Africa.
On November 4, dicastery secretary Father Armando Matteo announced that the dicastery will release a document outlining the Catholic Church’s position on polygamy at the end of the month after a request from African bishops.
The document, titled “We Two: In Praise of Monogamy. Doctrinal Note on the Value of Marriage, Exclusive Communion, and Mutual Belonging,” comes after African bishops requested direction on how to address polygamy within their communities during the Synod on Synodality.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, marriage is defined as “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”
While African culture has been especially resistant to homosexual “marriage,” polygamy is a practice rooted in tradition and therefore difficult to remove from African culture. Famous polygamists include the King of Swaziland, who currently has 15 wives, and Jacob Zuma, fourth president of South Africa, with six wives and 20 children.
In 2017, Nigerian priest and renowned theologian Father Paulinus Odozor revealed that, “Basically, our problem in Africa is not with divorce, remarriage, and Catholics receiving the sacraments. Our problem is what to do with polygamy and polygamous families and so on.”
As a result, Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, which has been used by various dissenting bishops and cardinals as their argument to give Communion to those committing grave sin, has led to problems within Catholic churches in Africa.
Also in 2017, African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier suggested that if Pope Francis’ exhortation actually allows Westerners in irregular situations to receive Holy Communion, it would make the Catholic Church in Africa, which has fought long and hard against polygamy, lose credibility among its people.
“If Westerners in irregular situations can receive Communion, are we to tell our polygamists & other ‘misfits’ that they too are allowed?” he posted on X.
