The equal dignity of persons is today put forward with a view of founding the public recognition of modes of life up to now kept in the private sphere. This endeavour which at present does not distort the concept of marriage into pure nominalism, seems to waver between the civil neutrality of a progressive contractualisation of all modes of life and the development of an institutional pluralism. If, mutatis mutandis, canon law seems to be subjected to similar tensions, we ought to distinguish the controversies peculiar to a theology of ecclesial pluralism from a necessary theology of social pluralism. Reflecting on the classical coexistence of civil and canonical marriages, the A. shows that what is at stake in the current evolution between unity and diversity concerns also the place of the theological word in civil society.
