Volume 46 Number 4 Article 1 June 2018 A Catholic Perspective on Marriage and the Gift of Children - With Special Attention to Herman Dooyeweerd's Social Ontology of Marriage Eduardo J. Echeverria Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege Part of the Christianity Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Echeverria, Eduardo J. (2018) "A Catholic Perspective on Marriage and the Gift of Children - With Special Attention to Herman Dooyeweerd's Social Ontology of Marriage," Pro Rege: Vol. 46: No. 4, 1 - 14. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol46/iss4/1 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A Catholic Perspective on Marriage and the Gift of Children—With Special Attention to Herman Dooyeweerd’s Social Ontology of Marriage1 of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage” (no. 50). In this short paper, I discuss the question of how the good of marriage is related to the gift of children, according to the Catholic tradition. The answer to this question presup- poses an understanding of the nature of marriage and the corresponding reasons for getting mar- ried. In the twentieth century, particularly in the fundamental theological accounts, for example, of Dietrich von Hildebrand (1929), Pius XI in Casti Connubii (1930), and Karol Wojtyla (1960), but also of Reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1936 [1957]), who appreciably engages the thought by Eduardo J.