Italy recognizes three parents for 4-year-old child in historic court ruling

An Italian court has legally recognized a 4-year-old child as having three parents, two fathers and a mother, a historic decision that has angered conservative Catholics.

The decision was reported on Tuesday by several Italian media outlets and confirmed by Pasqua Manfredi, the lawyer for one of the boy's fathers.

The child was born in Germany and lives there with two married men, one of whom is the biological parent, who fathered him with a woman who is a friend of the couple.

The non-biological father, who is Italian-German, then adopted the child under German law, but he requested that this adoption be recognized in Italy as well.

A local authority rejected the request, suspecting that the child was born to a surrogate mother who had carried the pregnancy abroad, a practice that Italy's conservative government has criminalized.

An appeals court in the southern Italian city of Bari overturned the decision, acknowledging that there was no agreement for surrogacy in the family.

The decision, which is final, means that Italy, like Germany, accepts that the child has two legally recognized fathers and one mother.

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"There was no secret surrogacy agreement here, this is a case of three people who all want to be parents to this child, and the court recognized that," Manfredi told Reuters.

The decision was made in January, but was made public as Italy marked the 10th anniversary of parliament voting to legalize same-sex partnerships.

Pro Vita & Famiglia, a Catholic group that campaigns for what it calls "traditional family values", condemned the decision and said that legal recognition of same-sex unions had "subverted family law, exposing minors to all kinds of social and ideological experimentation".