Love isn’t a sin: why polyamory doesn’t need the Vatican’s permission
When the Vatican warns the world about the rise of polyamory, it is speaking from a worldview that treats love like a commodity. Something to ration. Something that must be protected from dilution. Something that shrinks if shared too widely.
Those of us who practice polyamory or ethical non-monogamy know a different truth entirely: love has never worked that way.
Before I go further, a quick note for readers of Respectful Kink. Polyamory is not a kink. So why are we talking about it? It is not a sex practice, not an identity rooted in erotic archetypes or power exchange. It is a relationship structure - a way of loving openly, consensually, and with intention. Therefore for us to choose to talk about polyamory on Respectful Kink might feel a bit off-topic.
However, as many of us know firsthand, the communities often overlap. Queer spaces, kink spaces, and ENM spaces tend to be places where people build chosen family, stretch beyond rigid norms, and practice communication with uncommon honesty. So while this article is a departure from our usual themes, it comes from the same core belief: people deserve expansive, shame-free ways of loving each other.
And polyamory, like kink, is often misunderstood from the outside.
The Vatican’s latest comments frames polyamory as a threat to monogamy, to family, to “the moral order.” But look at the actual lived experience of polyamorous people and you’ll find something entirely different: abundance. Not chaos. Not danger. Abundance.
I often use the comparison that when parents have a second child, they don’t love their first child any less. Their capacity for love expands. The family grows. The heart stretches. No one writes moral treatises about how irresponsible it is to have more than one child because “love must be kept exclusive.”
We understand, intuitively, that love multiplies.
Polyamory is no different.
It is the recognition that humans are complex, emotional beings whose love is not restricted to a single channel. It is the belief that one person cannot - and should not - be expected to meet every need, fulfill every desire, or carry the entire weight of someone’s emotional universe. It is the commitment to building relationships based on transparency, communication, and consent rather than secrecy and shame.
That doesn’t mean polyamory is easy. In a world shaped by scarcity thinking, zero-sum competition, and rigid roles, polyamory is often the harder path. It asks you to unlearn fear. To sit with your insecurities rather than demand that someone else eliminate them. To talk honestly about needs and boundaries. To celebrate the joy your partner(s) find with others rather than treating it as a threat.
Polyamory is not the easy choice.
But it just might be the more loving one.
What worries me about statements like the Vatican’s is not the theology. It’s the way it reinforces an old idea: that love must be controlled. That families must look a certain way. That anything unfamiliar is dangerous. This framing has a long history of harming queer people, kink communities, interracial couples, single parents, and anyone who dared to craft a relationship outside the sanctioned script.
Polyamorous people are not dismantling society. We are building lives that are honest, caring, and collaborative. We are raising children in networks of support and communication. We are teaching the value of consent, clarity, and emotional skill. And we are doing this with respect for monogamy, for those who choose it, and for the many beautiful forms love can take.
Polyamory is not for everyone, and it doesn’t need to be. Just like monogamy isn’t for everyone. Just like kink isn’t for everyone. What matters is the presence of consent, respect, freedom, and human dignity.
The Vatican wants to protect love by limiting it. Polyamory protects love by trusting its expansiveness.
And in a world that pushes fear, division, and hierarchy, choosing abundance is a radical and deeply human act.