The Vatican has warned Catholics against polygamy, insisting that real marriage is a lifelong and exclusive union of one man and one woman.
In a new doctrinal note backing monogamy signed by Pope Leo XIV and released on Tuesday, the Vatican rejected both polygamy and polyamory, saying these practices rely on “the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in the succession of faces.”
The document said that “various public forms of non-monogamous unions – sometimes called ‘polyamory’ – are growing in the West.” It argued that every genuine marriage is a union of two people “of exactly the same dignity and the same rights” and therefore demands exclusivity.
It framed both polyamory and polygamy as incompatible with the equal dignity and mutual belonging that the Catholic Church considers essential to marriage.