Yes, it was precisely a hymn to monogamous and indissoluble marriage that won the Super Bowl of Italian song, in Sanremo on the first night of this month of March, with “Per sempre sì” sung by Sal Da Vinci and with the enthusiastic commentary on “Vatican News” by Bishop Antonio Staglianò, president of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, for this unexpected “poetic resistance” to a spirit of the times with ever fewer marriages and tempted by “polyamory.”
Staglianò refers to the doctrinal note “Una caro” published last November by the Dicastery for the doctrine of the faith, with the eloquent subtitle : “In Praise of Monogamy,” where the model is the love of Jesus who sacrifices himself to the end and thus makes the mutual gift of Christian marriage a sacrament.
But that monogamous and indissoluble marriage is by no means triumphant in the world and, indeed, continues to be subjected to old and new challenges is acknowledged by “Una caro” itself.
Of these challenges, “Una caro” cites two : polygamy, still widespread especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and “polyamory,” understood as a “public form of non-monogamous union,” which is growing above all in the West.
The African case touches more of a nerve for the Catholic Church, since Africa is the only continent where Christianity is expanding today, now with 20 percent of the world’s total of baptized Catholics, but with polygamy acting as an obstacle to many further new baptisms.
In Africa, the Catholic Church has attempted a number of times and in various ways to address this obstacle, and for a couple of years has been trying to develop a common stance. The Symposium of the episcopal conferences of Africa and Madagascar has entrusted twelve experts with the task of drafting a unified document on the issue, the draft of which – previously reviewed and approved by the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith – was discussed at a plenary assembly in Kigali, Rwanda, from July 30 to August 4, 2025.
The draft was presented to the closed-door assembly by Sister Esther Lucas, a Mozambican theologian, and the text is now being further developed before being submitted to the national episcopal conferences. But it is already known that there has been criticism of the practice, in use here and there, of granting the polygamist official recognition as a “permanent catechumen,” meaning a candidate for baptism to be celebrated only after he abandons polygamy – that is, in practice, almost never.
Instead, what is meant to be strengthened is “pastoral care” for and support of polygamists, who for the most part will remain so, “since spouses cannot break the bonds acquired,” but will still be able to get a better understanding of Christian marriage, as “deeply linked to the mystery of Christ and the Church.” It should be noted that, if they meet the conditions for access to the sacraments, the first wife and children could be baptized, while the polygamous husband and other women “will be encouraged to live their faith in a penitential way and in the hope of full integration into the community of Jesus.”
Everyone must also be clearly told that “polygamy is not a normative condition, not even in societies where it is legalized.” This because a good thirty-one African countries legally recognize it.
But the Catholic Church is also facing difficulties from the course taken by other Christian confessions on this issue. In the Anglican Church, the issue has been hotly debated since the late nineteenth century, and the currently accepted solution, adopted in 1988, allows a polygamist to be baptized together with his wives and children, provided he does not add any more wives to those he already has.
There are also thousands of independent African churches, founded and led by indigenous leaders, which have seen strong expansion in recent decades, and in a country like South Africa now account for more than half of Christians. These churches have a very lenient attitude toward polygamy. Professor Marzio Barbagli of the University of Bologna, author of a major global historical and sociological study titled “Monogamy : History of an Exception,” recently published in Italy by Il Mulino, even attributes to independent African churches “the birth of a figure unknown in other continents and other historical periods : the polygamous Christian. In Burkina Faso, a good 24 percent of Christians have multiple wives, and in Chad, polygamists are more common among Christians than among Muslims.”
Barbagli’s research, spanning three millennia, confirms that “in human cultures, it is monogamy that is rare, while polygamy is common.” The Greeks and Romans were the first, starting in the fifth century BC, to adopt the monogamous system of family formation, which Christianity made “exclusive, lasting, and more egalitarian with regard to the obligation of marital fidelity.”
And this in a world that outside the dominion of Rome was entirely polygamous, gradually being won over to monogamy first in Europe, a few centuries later in the Americas, later still in Japan, China, and India, while the switch is still underway in other countries of Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa.
On his first African trip, scheduled for April 13 – 23 in Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea, Pope Leo will certainly address the issue of polygamy. And perhaps he will take into account what is written in this regard in a footnote of the doctrinal note “Una caro,” on what are considered the elements of the phenomenon to be emphasized :
“In-depth studies of African cultures show that various traditions attribute particular importance […] to the role that the first wife is called to exercise vis-à-vis other wives. […] The first wife, duly married according to traditional customs, is often presented as the one given by God to the man, even if the man later receives other women. In cases of polygamy, the first wife is accorded a special place in performing sacred rites connected with funerals, or in caring for the upbringing of children born to other women within the family.”
But the Jesuit Anthony R. Lusvardi, professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, wrote in his commentary on “Una caro” in the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica:”
“On closer inspection, if one honestly considers the current state of Western culture, one must avoid presenting polygamy as an exclusively African problem. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas and other scholars coined the ironic term ‘serial monogamy’ to describe relationship patterns – characterized by widespread divorce and short-term cohabitation – that are now widely prevalent in the West. The practice of surrogate motherhood also effectively introduces a third party into the marriage for the purpose of procreation, without granting the woman who gives birth any of the rights and protections proper to the wife. […] Moreover, following the legalization of same-sex unions in various Western countries, some critics of the monogamous family structure, deemed oppressive, have begun to promote systems considered more inclusive, like ‘polyamory.’ The growth in Europe of Muslim communities with a long tradition of polygamy could make the issue even more inescapable in the future.”
In short, as Barbagli also writes at the conclusion of his study, “the decline of polygamy did not coincide with the full affirmation of monogamy. Certainly not the indissoluble kind for which the Catholic Church has always fought.”
(Translated by Matthew Sherry : traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
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