Natural Family Planning International

This is the fourth installment of my commentary on The Human Body: a sign of dignity and a gift by Fr. Richard M. Hogan. For publication details, see the blog for September 9, 2007.

What is responsible parenthood? Is the use of NFP to avoid pregnancy automatically virtuous behavior? Is it possible to use NFP in a wrongful manner? Do couples need serious reasons or any reasons at all for practicing NFP to avoid pregnancy? What does the Catholic Church really teach about the virtuous use of natural family planning to avoid or postpone pregnancy? These questions are important to conscientious Catholic couples. What does Fr. Richard Hogan have to say about this issue?

What is responsible parenthood? In his booklet The Human Body, Fr. Hogan writes: “Responsible parenthood signifies the virtuous choice made by a married couple either to strive to procreate or to try to postpone conception.” I completely agree, but the key phrase here is “virtuous choice.”

Is the use of systematic NFP to avoid pregnancy automatically virtuous behavior? I suppose we can say that it is automatically virtuous in the sense that it is not the sin of contraception or abortion, but that’s not all that conscientious Catholics want to know. The interesting question is “What does the Catholic Church teach about the virtuous use of NFP?” Is it virtuous to use NFP for any reason whatsoever or does it become virtuous behavior only when the couple have sufficiently serious reasons to avoid pregnancy? Is fitting in with the cultural expectation of only two children a sufficient reason to avoid further pregnancies?

The question is addressed by the “birth control” encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae. I will use Janet Smith’s translation because she gives the Latin words used in the official document.

If we look further to physical, economic, psychological, and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who, guided by prudent consideration and generosity, elect to accept many children. Those are also to be considered responsible who, for serious reasons [seriis causis] and due respect for moral precepts, decide not to have another child for either a definite or an indefinite amount of time.

That was from Section 10. Section 16 amplifies this and uses four different terms: serious reasons [iustae causae], good and serious reasons [argumenta…honesta et gravia], defensible reasons [probabiles rationes], and good reasons [iustae rationes].

The original translation published in the United States used “grave reasons” instead of “serious reasons” in section 10, and that has caused debate. “Grave” carries the connotations of something much more serious than simply “serious.” In English “grave” can sound as if it means having one foot in the grave, and it was not a good translation. The phrases in section 16 definitely qualify the meaning of “serious reasons” in section 10. Still, there is, in my opinion, no reasonable way to escape the fact that the virtuous reasons for using NFP to avoid pregnancy cannot be trivial; they must be good and defensible before God, serious in a reasonable sense of the term. For years I have used the phrase “sufficiently serious reasons” to convey the combined meaning of those two sections of Humanae Vitae, and I still think it is a fair and workable definition.

Father Hogan, on the other hand, does not like “serious reasons” terminology. He writes that “In the past the magisterium has taught that couples…should have ‘serious reasons’ ” to use NFP for avoiding pregnancy. He argues that Pope John Paul II’s omission of that phrase in Familiaris Consortio takes us somehow beyond that terminology. “If the language of ‘serious reasons’ has almost disappeared, it is because John Paul knew that these will exist as a matter of course if families respond to his challenge to learn the theology of the body, NFP, and the theology of the family.”

During an EWTN show that featured Fr. Hogan and other CCL representatives (September 13, 2006), a caller used the term “grave reason.” Fr. Hogan replied that he “had a campaign against that language.” Later he described what he thought would be sufficient reasons. The following is a substantially accurate transcription from the recording. He said that if the couple were leading a reasonable good life, holding down jobs, taking care of their children, taking care of each other, taking care of extended family, contributing to society, giving to the Church, receiving the sacraments, then if such a couple decides to seek or postpone pregnancy, they have a sufficient reason.

In my opinion, that description is grossly insufficient. It says nothing about Christian generosity and prudence. It could well describe the culturally “ideal” couple who intend to have no more than two children, are enjoying two very good incomes, and who differ from secular humanists in their pursuit of the comfortable life only by weekly Mass attendance. I dare to say that that is not what any of the Popes have had in mind.

The bottom-line question is this: What should couples who attend NFP courses hear on this subject? Should they hear an exhortation to study the theology of the body, and if so, how many of the 129 lectures and how many explanatory books should they read? Should they be exhorted to study the theology of the family, and if so, from what sources?

Or should they hear a clear and brief explanation that NFP is not “Catholic birth control,” that they are called to generosity, and that they need “sufficiently serious reasons” to use systematic NFP to avoid or postpone pregnancy? Should they learn that having children is the ordinary Christian call until or unless they have very good reasons to think that God is no longer calling them to have another child or at least not right now?

I am disappointed that I do not get any sense of the latter paragraph from Father Hogan’s booklet or his televised comments.

Next week: How should we explain the sinfulness of sexual sins?
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, and free e-book available for downloading at www.NFPandmore.org .

Blog 14 for Sept 23, 2007 re Human Body n 3

This is the third installment of my commentary on The Human Body: a sign of dignity and a gift by Fr. Richard M. Hogan.  For publication details, see the blog for September 9, 2007. 

Is it really true that “through the human sexual powers we can love in a more profound way than through any other of our physical attributes”?  Father Richard Hogan thinks so, but I have some questions.  Imagine the followers of Mother Teresa, tired after a long week of using their hands to pick up, nurture, bathe, and care for the poorest of the poor in Calcutta.  Imagine a married couple who are enjoying a prosperous life and have enjoyed the full expression of their sexual powers several times that week during the infertile time of the cycle.  On what basis can we say that the latter couple has loved in a more profound way than those Missionary Sisters of Charity?  Or take that same couple taking care of a sick child all night or exercising great patience with a troublesome two-year-old or a wayward teenager.  On what basis do we say that they exercise a deeper, more profound love in their ordinary marriage acts than in these other acts of love? 

Yes, the marriage act is a unique act of married love even though it is common.  And, yes, it can be profound.  It has both the potential to co-create another person destined for eternal life with God and the potential for the spouses to consciously and willfully renew their marriage covenant.  But in my opinion there is something off base in comparisons that make our fun-filled couple in the example above somehow superior in their expression of love to those who labor with their hands and hearts to care for others.  Fr. Hogan’s way of expression reminds me of some college students who had heard a liberal Jesuit extol the virtues of marriage.  He told them that at the moment of orgasm the floodgates of sanctifying grace were opened, and the students wanted to know what I thought of that.  I told them that I thought Father was confusing sanctifying grace with sperm count.  (The priest later became a dissenter, left the Society, and married.)  I do not doubt that spouses can and should grow in grace and holiness in marriage and in the marital communion.  I do not doubt that individuals can and should grow in grace and holiness in receiving the Eucharistic Communion.  But neither is automatic.  For each communion to help them to grow in holiness, they need to have the proper dispositions.  (See Chapter 4, “Holy Communion: Eucharistic and Marital” in Sex and the Marriage Covenant.)

After his confusing talk about the marriage act, Father Hogan writes in an even more confusing way about natural family planning.  “NFP examines our fertility.  It investigates our sexuality, the window to the soul.  In the NFP classes, couples are taught about their own fertility.  NFP is the knowledge of fertility.  There is a distinction between knowledge of fertility and its application.  Married couples may apply the knowledge of their fertility to plan their families, but this application is actually responsible parenthood.” 
 
Pardon the long quotation, but I have to put my comments in context.  First, NFP is NOT identical with the knowledge of fertility.  NFP stands for Natural Family Planning, and “Planning” entails an activity, not just knowledge.  In the NFP movement, the terms “fertility awareness” and “NFP instruction” are widely used to denote the intellectual aspect of NFP, and Fr. Hogan’s identification of NFP with intellectuality is the first I have seen.  It doesn’t make sense.  Ordinary people talk about “practicing NFP” and they don’t mean studying.

Second, who says that the application of their knowledge is responsible parenthood?  Yes, it should be.  But is it?  That depends on whether couples use their knowledge properly.  Systematic NFP can be used generously and it can be used selfishly, and how can we call the selfish use of NFP “responsible parenthood”?

Father Hogan did point to an important part of NFP instruction when he wrote, “It investigates our sexuality, the window to the soul.”  Again, that’s the norm or the ideal, but it is certainly not done just by studying the bodily aspects of human sexuality.  What is extremely important to understand about human sexuality can be known by most people only through faith.  It is faith that teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of the Triune God who has no body.  It is faith that teaches us that the human act of intercourse is essentially different from the anatomically similar act by high primates in that it ought to be an expression of married love and commitment, not just a satisfaction of instincts.  It is faith that teaches us that this act ought to take place only within marriage.  It is by faith that we accept the description of this act as “the marriage act.”  In Latin ecclesiastical documents it is called “usus matrimonii,” literally the use of marriage.  It is by faith that we learn that attempting the “marriage act” outside of marriage is the grave matter of mortal sin.  It is by faith that we learn that distorting the marriage act with contraceptive behaviors is also the grave matter of mortal sin. 

One does not learn these things at the local community college course on human reproduction.  That’s why Catholic priests and others send engaged couples to courses on Natural Family Planning.  They don’t want just an anatomy course.  What they want is a course that includes fertility awareness and also the Christian use of our sexual powers, the call to generosity in having children, and Catholic teaching against unnatural forms of birth control.  Knowledgeable priests will also want their couples to learn about ecological breastfeeding as a form of NFP as well as being best for baby and mother. 

Is this what couples get in any given NFP course?  It is not in my power to make such a judgment with any certainty.  In our website manual, we teach in this manner.  We will also do so in the classroom teaching program that we are now developing and that we hope to have ready in early 2008.  I think is unlikely that any other NFP program is teaching in this comprehensive way, but I am more than willing to be corrected.  

Next week: more on responsible parenthood.  Are “serious reasons” obsolete?

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, and free e-book available for downloading at www.NFPandmore.org .

This is the second installment of my commentary on The Human Body: a sign of dignity and a gift by Fr. Richard M. Hogan.  For publication details, see the blog for September 9, 2007. 

The use of a person: good and bad
At the end of his Introduction, Fr. Hogan makes the point that when we use someone’s body, we use that person.  Further, “…we should never use someone’s body or treat it like a thing.  The human body should never become an object of use.  To use the body is to use the person.”  I agree.  In the context of this booklet, it is clear that Fr. Hogan is addressing the common problem of people using each other as tools for sexual pleasure.  How many hearts have been broken when one of the persons realized he or she was just being used in this very negative sense and then discarded. 

There are, however, two distinctly different meanings of “using” other persons.  There is a good sense and there is a bad sense.  The classical example of the good sense is the Virgin Mary who responded to God through the Angel Gabriel, “Be it done unto me according to your word.”  Okay, that’s a very special case dealing with supernatural realities.  But something like that happens at the purely human level.  Some people join communities, religious or secular, with a Rule in which they place themselves under complete obedience to the Superior.  In effect they are saying, “Use me to help achieve the goals of this community and my personal growth as well.” 

A common case of one human person being used by another human person is the employment relationship, and it is here that some people treat others with the dignity due them as human persons while others treat them as things, to be used and then discarded.  Every realistic person knows that sometimes things happen in organizations that make it necessary to disemploy one or more employees.  Where there is proper management, the manager will explain the reasons for the decision and make some effort to convey that he or she appreciates the personal pain and difficulty the separation is causing.  Some companies offer separation packages that respect the dignity of human persons.  On the other hand, imagine a company that had long-time relationships with certain employees.  Imagine that there was a change of management.  Imagine that the new management disemployed these long-time employees simply by not giving them any work to do.  No discussion.  No reasons given.  No letter of disemployment.  Just nothing.  Would you say that such a treatment was in accord with respect for human dignity?  Or would you say it was an example of using people in the bad sense and discarding them as things? 

The marriage act
After his Introduction, Fr. Hogan treats of Marriage and Family Life, calling this a Theology of the Family.  Here he distinguishes between the theology of the body and the theology of the family.  He believes that the former emphasizes “man’s dignity, especially in regard to the body” while the latter emphasizes “the noble and almost unbelievable vocation of man and woman to enter into a familial communion in imitation of the Blessed Trinity.”  Personally, I don’t find such distinctions helpful in a booklet such as this.  It comes across to me as too many uses of the word “theology” and distinctions that are more important for academic tests than for the real life needs of young people today. 

This section proceeds well until the very last paragraph.  Here he writes eloquently about the marriage act, but he carries it too far.  “Even though other human relationships of love are expressed in and through the human body, the union of husband and wife in marriage is of a totally different order because marriage depends on the body in a way that no other human relationship does!  The act of married love is the defining characteristic of marriage.”  While I certainly agree with the last sentence, I have to wonder what Fr. Hogan means when he says that “marriage depends on the body in a way that no other human relationship does.”  Certainly, the propagation of children doesn’t depend on marriage; just look at the increasing rates of out-of-wedlock sex and births.  Further, I   think Fr. Hogan has forgotten another important human relationship.  We can also say “Breastfeeding depends on the body in a way that no other human relationship does!”  Literally, for most of human existence, a baby’s life depended upon the bodily act of breastfeeding.  In her book, Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood, Sheila Kippley makes eleven comparisons between the marriage act and breastfeeding.

 • Both the marriage act and breastfeeding are voluntary acts between two persons.
 • Both acts are normally essential for life.
 • The wife offers her body to her husband in the marriage act and to her baby in the breastfeeding act.
 • Both acts are used in Sacred Scripture to describe God’s love for his people. 
 • The Pope’s theology of the body applies to both acts. 
 For an explanation of these and the remaining six comparisons, please read this light-shedding book. 

The fact that there are artificial substitutes today does not take away from the unique bodily relationship of breastfeeding any more than out-of-wedlock sexual behavior takes away from the unique character of the marriage act.  But what is that unique character? 

In my opinion, what is unique about the marriage act is that it ought to be a renewal of the marriage covenant.  The physical act ought to be much more than physical.  I believe it is intended by God to be, at least implicitly, a renewal of the marriage covenant.  The marriage act ought to reflect and renew the commitment, the fidelity, the openness to life, the caring love, and the for-better-and-for-worse permanence of the marriage vows they pledged on their wedding day.  This, of course, is the covenant theology of sexuality that Father Hogan has dismissed as objective, deductive and principled and therefore irrelevant today. 

It seems to me that the best explanation of Fr. Hogan’s assertion that “marriage depends on the body in a way that no other human relationship does” is to explain it in terms of the marriage covenant.  When the physical act is truly a renewal of the marriage covenant, the spouses are implicitly pledging that they will raise their children in a family setting and that they will strive to raise that child in the ways of God.  That is what marriages need, not just more and more sex but marriage acts that serve to renew their commitment to God and to each other.

Next week: Is natural family planning well defined as just knowledge and study?  What is the difference between a course on the human reproductive cycle and a course on natural family planning? 

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, easy-to-read, free, downloadable e-book available at
www.NFPandmore.org