From LifeSiteNews. (Photo: Unsplash)
An appeals court has ordered Italy to recognize a German adoption that gives a 4-year-old child one mother and two “fathers” as his legal parents, the first such ruling of its kind in Italy.
On May 12, Italy’s Court of Appeal in Bari made public a decree ruled on January 21, 2026, according to which a German adoption involving a child born to a woman and later adopted by the “husband” of the biological father must be recognized under Italian law.
“It is a ruling that grants protection to new forms of shared parenthood, which is not in conflict either with Italian law or with the superior interest of the child,” attorney Pasqua Manfredi said in comments reported by the Italian press.
The child was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on December 17, 2021, to a woman described in court documents as a longtime friend of a same-sex male “couple” who had been together for more than a decade and “married” in Germany since 2019. The boy was initially registered as the child of the biological mother and biological father, but, in late 2022, a Berlin court approved adoption by the father’s “husband” under German law.
In October 2024, the men asked an Italian municipality in Apulia, southern Italy, to register the German adoption order, because the biological father is registered as an Italian citizen abroad. Local authorities refused, arguing that the circumstances indicated a possible “secret surrogacy,” which is prohibited under both Italian and German law. Court records show that municipal officials claimed there remained “legitimate suspicion” that the child had been carried “on behalf of intended parents,” which is to say, via a surrogate.