St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, on May 8. Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images Rome —

The Vatican has issued a warning against the rise of polyamory, insisting marriage is the stable, lifelong and exclusive partnership between a man and woman.

A new document defending monogamy, signed off by Pope Leo XIV , was written as “various public forms of non-monogamous unions – sometimes called ‘polyamory’ – are growing in the West,” the text said. It also followed discussions with Roman Catholic bishops in Africa about polygamy, which has been described as a “pastoral challenge” for the church in the region and was discussed by Vatican assemblies (synods) in 2023 and 2024.

Polygamy tends to refer to one man with multiple wives, while polyamory involves people having multiple consensual

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