The Roman Catholic Church is defending marriage as a union between one man and one woman amid concerns about polygamy and polyamory, and increased acceptance of same-sex relationships.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a Doctrinal Note on the Value of Marriage as an Exclusive Union and Mutual Belonging on Tuesday. The document, authored by the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez and approved by Pope Leo XIV, comes as the Catholic Church’s African bishops are seeking to stop the spread of polygamy on the continent.
The doctrinal note also expresses concerns about the rise of “polyamory” in Western countries, referring to non-marital relationships between more than two people.
“Monogamy is not simply the opposite of polygamy,” Fernandez wrote. “It is much more, and its deepening allows us to conceive marriage in all its wealth and fecundity. The question is intimately linked to the unitive purpose of sexuality, which is not reduced to guaranteeing procreation, but helps the enrichment and strengthening of the single and exclusive union and the feeling of mutual belonging.”
An endnote in the document notes that, in Africa, “polygamy is a practice tolerated because of the needs of the life (absence of offspring, levirate, labor for survival, etc.).”
The doctrinal note also attempts to refute the main justifications for polygamy by pointing to the biblical vision of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
“Polygamy, adultery or polyamory are based on [an] illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in the succession of faces. As the myth of Don Giovanni illustrates, the number dissolves the same: it disperses the unity of the amorous impulse. If Levinas showed that the face of the […] other summons to an infinite, unique and irreducible responsibility, multiplying faces in a so-called total union fragmenting the […] sense of marital love,” Fernandez added.
The document includes several references to monogamy in Scripture, as well as teachings from Christian theologians and popes over the years. The doctrinal note, and its multiple descriptions of marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman, comes at a time of concern that the Catholic Church is seeking to soften its teaching on marriage.
Concerns about changes to the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage grew in late 2023 when the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with Pope Francis’ approval, issued a declaration titled “Fiducia Supplicans.” The document authorized priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples while clarifying that “one should neither provide for nor promote a ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation.”
Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who previously served as the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, condemned “Fiducia Supplicans” as “self-contradictory” because “one can only accept that it is good to bless the unions, even in a pastoral way, if one believes that such unions are not objectively contrary to the law of God” while on the other hand, “as long as Pope Francis continues to affirm that homosexual unions are always contrary to God’s law, he is implicitly affirming that such blessings cannot be given.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
