A Plea for the Traditional Family: Situating Marriage within John Paul II's Realist,or Personalist,Perspective of Human Freedom 1

Abstract

This article is an attempt to defend the rights of the traditional family: not simply against the redefinition of marriage, but more fundamentally against a re-conceptualization of human freedom and human rights. To this end, it contrasts what Saint John Paul II calls an individualistic understanding of freedom and a personalistic notion of the same in order to argue that human freedom is called by the Creator to be in service of, and not in opposition to, the good of the human family. From this perspective—that of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church—it argues for the harmony between natural marriage and the respect of fundamental human rights, and it presents the social dimension of marriage as fundamental with respect to the legal and social protection of the family.