A Commentary on Una Caro, the Vatican's Document on Monogamy
"Both the New and the Old"
The Catholic Church’s pastors have been unusually prolific over the past few weeks, issuing a series of theologically and ethically significant documents, statements, and initiatives: the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF)’s doctrinal note on the Virgin Mary’s role in salvation history, Mater Populi Fidelis; the US Catholic bishops’ special message on immigration and the launch of their You Are Not Alone initiative; Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic letter In Unitate Fidei on the Nicene Creed and his ecumenical journey to Türkiye and Lebanon; the DDF’s doctrinal note on monogamy, Una Caro; Archbishop Timothy Broglio’s recent denunciation of US military strikes in the Caribbean; and a synthesis report from a Vatican commission arguing that, for both historical and theological reasons, the Church should not ordain women as deacons.
As promised, this week I am offering a commentary on Una Caro, the DDF’s recent document on monogamy. In the future, I hope to write on the synthesis report on the female diaconate, which, while not arriving out of the blue, comes unexpectedly soon after we learned last month that the DDF had given the commission (which was first created by Pope Francis in 2020, ended its work in 2022, but was then reactivated earlier this year) sole responsibility for addressing the question of women deacons. The commission’s report has important implications for a number of theological issues that I want to consider in depth.
A note: The Vatican has still not published an English translation of Una Caro (or any other translation, for that matter, aside from the original Italian). Any quotations below are my own translations.
Una Caro, whose title translates as "one flesh,” is a reflection on the unity of the marriage bond expressed in the practice of monogamy. The introduction to the document explains that the Church’s Magisterium has focused a great deal of attention on the indissolubility of marriage, particularly in relation to the issue of divorce, and on the procreative purpose of human sexuality, but less so on the unity of the two spouses (#5). The introduction also states that the document was produced with two pastoral situations in mind: the problem of Catholics in polygamous marriages, primarily in Africa but also elsewhere in the world; and the spread of polyamory, especially, although not exclusively, in Europe and North America (#2).
In a letter Pope Francis wrote to Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández when the latter was appointed the prefect of the DDF, the former explained that the DDF’s role was less the prosecution of doctrinal errors and more the clarification of the Church’s doctrine as a tool of evangelization. In that spirit, Una Caro insists that the Church’s teaching on monogamy is not simply a “no” to polygamy or polyamory. Instead, the purpose of the document is to elucidate the truth and beauty of the Church’s teaching on monogamy (#3). It largely succeeds in that task, although one might fault it for its failure to address in any detail the social and pastoral challenges posed by the quite different issues of polygamy and polyamory. As I noted last week, however, this may reflect the DDF not wanting to step on the toes of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), which is developing a pastoral statement on Catholics in polygamous marriages to be released sometime in the near future.
Una Caro has five chapters aside from the introduction and conclusion. The first outlines the development of scriptural teaching on monogamy. Although noting that the Old Testament narrative unfolds in a world where polygamy was accepted—reflected in the family structures of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs and Israel’s monarchs like David and Solomon—Una Caro insists that the Old Testament provides the theological foundations for monogamy. This is particularly true of the Genesis creation story’s account of man and woman who become “one flesh,” the prophets’ appeal to monogamous marriage as a symbol of God’s faithfulness to His people, and the Song of Songs’ ecstatic description of the love between bride and groom (which the document notes has been interpreted as an allegory of the relationship between God and His people, #23). The first chapter closes by demonstrating that the New Testament clearly affirms monogamy, both in Jesus’ teachings on marriage in the Gospels and in Paul’s description of marriage as a symbol or sacrament of Christ’s relationship with the Church.
The second chapter of Una Caro includes a collection of citations from the Church Fathers, medieval theologians, and modern theologians, including Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, and the Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann, Paul Evdokimov, John Meyendorff, John Zizioulas, and Christos Yannaras. This chapter also includes an overview of papal and conciliar teaching on the unity of marriage from Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century to Pope Leo XIV today. Anyone who has taught or studied Catholic sexual ethics should be familiar with that material. The third chapter surveys more philosophical approaches to the unity of marriage, appealing to Thomas Aquinas, Antonin Sertillanges, the Protestant Søren Kierkegaard, the personalist philosophers Emmanuel Mounier and Jean Lacroix, and Emmanuel Lévinas. This chapter also includes a lengthy treatment of the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła written prior to his election as Pope John Paul II, particularly his book Love and Responsibility. Finally, the third chapter also cites Indian philosophical and religious texts that testify to monogamy (#105).
The fourth chapter is short and unusual: it cites a handful of modern poets (Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Eugenio Montale, Antonia Pozzi, Paul Éluard, Rabindranath Tagore, and Emily Dickinson) who have given expression to the exclusive union of married love in their poetry: “In these few examples cited, it is clear that the poetic word takes seriously the value of the exclusive union of two people who freely decide to be together and to belong exclusively to each other” (#114). Some have argued that this chapter of the document seems out of place or is inappropriate for a doctrinal document. But it seems to reflect the notion expressed by Pope John Paul II, when he called for a New Evangelization, that dialogue needs to take place not only at the level of theology and philosophy, but also that of culture. John Paul established the Pontifical Council for Culture for this purpose in 1982, and Pope Francis elevated it to the level of a dicastery with his reform of the Curia in 2022, merging it with the Congregation for Catholic Education to form the Dicastery for Culture and Education (today headed by Cardinal José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, perhaps not coincidentally himself a poet). In this chapter, Una Caro seems to be suggesting that we can find echoes of the Gospel’s teachings even in seemingly secular modern culture.
The last chapter may be the most interesting to many readers. It seeks to further develop the teachings surveyed in the earlier chapter, focusing particularly on the themes of “mutual belonging” and “conjugal charity.” I’ll return to this chapter later.
Interestingly, it seems to me that Una Caro follows a structure similar to that of Dignitas Infinita, the DDF’s 2024 declaration on human dignity. Both focus on a specific concept—”dignity” in the one case, “monogamy” or “marital unity” in the other—that is central to the Church’s doctrine. Both survey the scriptural and historical testimony regarding the concept in question. The two documents consider their respective topics of focus from the perspective of both faith and reason (I looked at this aspect of Dignitas Infinita here). And both close with sections elaborating the contemporary implications of the concept: in Dignitas Infinita, this takes the form of a survey of global issues in which human dignity is under threat; in Una Caro, we have the chapter on “mutual belonging” and “conjugal charity” already mentioned. Does this mark the emergence of a specific genre of document coming from the DDF?
Some commentators have criticized the second and third chapters of Una Caro in particular for stringing together a series of citations from the Church’s tradition without synthesizing the underlying teaching. This is a fair stylistic criticism of the document, and a similar criticism was made of the previously mentioned final section of Dignitas Infinita, which consists of several citations of Pope Francis’s remarks on the issues in question without tackling the issues in much depth. That being said, here is how I might summarize the Church’s teaching on monogamy as outlined in these chapters of Una Caro:
Marriage is not simply a contract between individuals. When they marry, two persons create a unity or bond that is ontologically real and not merely notional. Even so, the two persons are not absorbed or dissolved into this unity; they remain distinct individuals who are equal in dignity. And yet the marriage bond represents a transformation of both of those individuals, who now share their lives at the spiritual, emotional, and practical levels.
What’s more, the unity of the two spouses is a unity born of love, fidelity, and friendship. Modern philosophers and the Church’s recent magisterial teaching have described this love in terms of mutual or reciprocal self-giving. This love characteristic of marriage is by its very nature exclusive; to introduce another spouse through polygamy or another sexual partner through an adulterous relationship is, for this reason, incompatible with the authentic nature of married love.
Una Caro likewise states that the unity of marriage is expressed through sexual union, but it also insists that marital unity transcends sexual union. For example, it notes that as couples age, or for other reasons, the sexual expression of love may become less central for married couples, and yet marital unity can endure (#120).
Appealing back to the Old Testament prophets and the Apostle Paul, Una Caro insists that there is also a theological dimension to marital unity. Marriage is a sacramental sign of Christ’s love for the Church. Likewise, marital unity reflects Trinitarian communion. In marriage, two persons exist in the unity of love, just as in the Trinity, the three Persons exist in the unity of the divine nature (#118). In the later section on “conjugal charity,” the document proposes that “God is the principal author of the unity of marriage” with the cooperation of the two spouses through their free consent; marital unity is “the work of the Holy Spirit” (#137).
As Una Caro itself attests, all of this teaching on marriage can be found in recent magisterial documents. The new document simply summarizes and synthesizes these teachings to aid in the Church’s response to contemporary challenges like polygamy and polyamory. In the last chapter, however, and particularly in its treatment of “mutual belonging,” Una Caro breaks new ground that is sure to generate discussion and debate.
The section on mutual belonging reaffirms that the marriage bond is created through the mutual self-giving, and mutual acceptance, of the two spouses (#117). This mutual giving and receiving creates a new unity, a “we” that is more than just “you” and “me” (#118). But this section also revisits the notion, already found in the Christian tradition, that this unity does not mean that the two spouses are absorbed or dissolved as distinct persons. Una Caro goes further, insisting that two spouses retain their personal dignity and that this dignity must be respected in the marriage relationship. Here the teaching of Una Caro is explicitly linked to that of Dignitas Infinita (#122).
This dignity possessed by spouses is why the Church has always insisted that marriage must arise from free consent (#117). Similarly, Una Caro states that within each person there is an inner dimension “where only God can enter without violating [the person]” (#127). Therefore, each spouse must respect the other’s need for “space for solitude,” “autonomy,” and the sacredness of “the inner sanctum of the conscience” (#128). In other words, authentic marital love is not controlling, manipulative, or abusive. On the other hand, a healthy respect for freedom can slide into distance and estrangement (#132). The autonomy of the spouses must therefore be oriented toward mutual self-giving and the sanctification of one another (#133).
In what may be the most provocative paragraph of Una Caro, it develops the Church’s magisterial teaching on gender complementarity, which was particularly prominent in the teaching of Pope John Paul II. Complementarity refers to the idea that, while they are equal in dignity, there are essential differences between men and women. These differences complement each other and are essential to the marital bond. Una Caro, however, rejects any understanding of complementarity in marriage “where one of the two [spouses] is allowed to develop only some of their potential, while the other finds ample space for personal growth” (#123). Here the DDF seems to be responding to recent efforts to revive and make normative what are perceived to be traditional gender roles in the household, such as the “trad wife” movement. Last year, for example, NFL player Harrison Butker gave a controversial commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas where he suggested, among other things, that women should be more focused on marriage and raising children than on professional success (theologian Holly Taylor Coolman responded to Butker’s address in detail here).
In response to these efforts to reassert traditional gender roles, Una Caro insists, quoting Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia: “There can be a certain flexibility of roles and responsibilities [among spouses], depending on the concrete circumstances of each particular family” (#123, citing AL #175). In other words, “[I]t must be recognized that there is no single model of marital reciprocity.” The document also rejects the notion of the husband as the sole decision-maker in the household. Again quoting Pope Francis, it states: “In the home, decisions cannot be made unilaterally, since each spouse shares responsibility for the family; yet each home is unique and each marriage will find an arrangement that works best” (#123, citing AL #220).
When one spouse is not treated with dignity, as “an end in themselves” (#122), he or she becomes like a possession of the other, which leads to “manipulation, jealousy, abuse, infidelity” (#123). The document warns that “irritation and lack of respect” can grow into these more serious forms of disregard for the spouse’s dignity, including violence, and so spouses must be ready to set boundaries—”You do not possess me, you do not dominate me”—and dialogue with one another to build mutual understanding (#124). Once again citing Pope Francis, Una Caro notes the paradox that the intense union of marital love can create the temptation of erasing the distinction between the spouses and violating one or another’s dignity (#125). Mutual self-giving must be distinguished from a desire to absorb the other (and, one might add, the desire to be absorbed by the other) (#126).
In his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI insisted that there is an “inseparable connection” between the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act (#12). In other words, “[W]hile uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, [the marital act] also renders them capable of generating new life” (#12). This reflects the deeper truth that the union of two spouses in marriage is linked to the procreation of children; one might even say that a child is an embodied expression of the “one flesh” unity of the two spouses.
As I read through Una Caro, I was surprised by how little attention this notion receives in the document. I even re-read certain sections of the document to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Certainly, this is partly explained by the DDF’s intention to focus specifically on the unity of marriage rather than its indissolubility or its procreative dimension, which I already noted. But something more seems to be going on. Throughout much of the document, any time the procreation of children is mentioned, it is to relativize its importance:
The question [of monogamy] 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. (#3)
[I]n the East [i.e., among the Eastern Church Fathers], a more positive view of the relational aspect [of marriage] prevails, which is also expressed in sexual union within marriage, without reducing its purpose to procreation alone. (#40)
This “broadening” of the meaning of marriage [in Pope Pius XI’s Casti Connubi], which goes beyond the narrow sense, predominant until then, of an institution ordered to procreation and to the proper education of offspring, has opened the way for a deepening of the unitive sense of marriage and sexuality. (#65)
[Wojtyła] explains that marriage possesses “an interpersonal structure: it is a union and a community of two people.” This is its “essential character,” “the inner and essential reason for the existence of marriage,” which is “above all to constitute a union of two people.” This is its “integral value,” which remains even beyond procreation. (#97)
The DDF is here rightly rejecting the view that marriage is instituted solely, or even primarily, for the procreation of children, but it still seems unusual that this relativizing of the role of procreation in marriage is not paired with an emphasis on the link between the unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage as one finds in other magisterial documents.
To be fair, Una Caro does cite the above-mentioned passage from Humanae Vitae in the section surveying magisterial teachings on marriage. And finally, in the last section of the document on “conjugal charity,” it states: “An integral vision of conjugal charity does not deny its fruitfulness, the possibility of generating a new life. . . . Sexual union, as a mode of expression of conjugal charity, must naturally remain open to the communication of life” (#145). But then it immediately moves into describing the “legitimate situations” in which the procreation of children may not be actively pursued: in cases of where procreation is not possible as a result of age or infertility; when a married couple engage in sexual activity without the explicit intention of procreating; and when couples practice natural family planning as a means of responsible parenthood (#145). Again, even when marital unity is explicitly linked to the procreation of children, the focus shifts to relativizing procreation’s role in marriage.
In a final sub-section titled “A friendship open to all,” Una Caro returns to the topic of the procreation of children. Here the document argues that, despite their intense love for one another, a married couple cannot be closed in on themselves but rather must be “open to other relationships.” It goes on to describe four primary ways this openness or “fruitfulness” can be expressed:
The spouses’ engagement with the community outside of the marriage, like work and other social activities;
The procreation and raising of children;
Sharing time with, and learning from, other married couples;
Rendering service to society and the Church as a family. (#152)
Theologians like Julie Hanlon Rubio and the late Richard Gaillardetz have emphasized that last social element of the fruitfulness (or “generativity,” to use Gaillardetz’s term) of marriage, so it’s good to see it mentioned here in a Vatican document. Una Caro also adds that married couples who cannot have children can fulfill the procreative dimension of marriage through adoption or supporting the children of other married couples (#152). The emphasis here on broadening our understanding of the fruitfulness of marriage is certainly positive, but again it is unusual (at least to me) that the DDF does so by seemingly de-centering the importance of procreation and childrearing, at least relative to prior magisterial statements.
Is this relativizing or de-centering of procreation’s place within marriage significant? Or is it simply a product of Una Caro’s attempt to consider the unity of marriage analytically distinct from marriage’s procreative aspect? Does it signal the first steps of a push toward the development of those doctrines where the “inseparable connection” between the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage and the marital act is central, namely those on contraception and homosexuality? But how could that be squared with the DDF’s recent insistence in Fiducia Supplicans that marriage is an “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children” (#4)? Is it a reaction against a perceived overemphasis on procreation in certain Catholic circles? I am not sure, and I’d like to hear what others think.