Natural Family Planning International

Still, some may ask, “Why is there all this fuss about Humanae Vitae and birth control?

The answer is very basic:  What is at stake is the divine truth about human love and your salvation!

God designed human bodies (male and female) in part, to generate human life.  And, God invented the marriage act.  In this way married couples would continue the human race according to His first Commandment in the Bible, “Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen 1:28).  God has also taught us in various ways that the marriage act can be morally good only between couples in a covenantal relationship.  He didn’t put it in those words but instead was very specific in condemning immoral behaviors—adultery, bestiality, contraception, fornication, incest, masturbation, prostitution, rape and sodomy.

This is not legalism.  At the Council of Jerusalem in the first years of the Church, the Apostles made it clear that Gentile converts were not required to adhere to the dietary and other laws of the Old Testament (e.g. circumcision).  But they were required to avoid sexual immorality. (Acts 15: 29).  God’s teaching about human sexuality reflects the reality of our human nature and the reality of love.

The marriage act is intended by God to be exclusively a marriage act.  Within marriage, it ought to be a true marriage act, a renewal of the love and faith and for-better-and-for-worse commitment of their wedding day covenant.  It ought to say, at least implicitly, “I take you once again in love and faith and for better and for worse till death parts us.”  However, when spouses use contraceptive behaviors, their body language is saying, “I take you for better but not for the imagined worse of possible pregnancy.”  That contradicts the built-in meaning of the marriage act.  It does not renew their marriage covenant but instead pretends to be what it is not.  That’s why Humanae Vitae calls contraceptive acts “intrinsically dishonest” (n.14).

Here at St. Lawrence Parish we are happy to sponsor the efforts of Natural Family Planning International (NFPI) because their program is more complete than most.  We offer that excellent instruction in two ways.

First, we have regular classes conducted by Bethany and Paul Bachmeyer.  They teach this three-meeting course in the fall and the spring each year.  [Here contact information is given for registration.]

Second, the NFPI Home Study Course offers a convenient way to take instruction via email.  Go to www.nfpandmore.org; at the top of the Home Page, click on Home Study Course.

Both the classroom and home study course use the same manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach.  It is readable as well as being informative, as indicated by these comments from users.

The combination of technical skills and moral and spiritual discussion was very informative and useful. We had never even heard of ecological breastfeeding before reading this book, so that was amazing new information.  We have learned so much from this course and couldn’t have asked for better support. Thank you so much. We will certainly tell others about NFP International.   —An engaged couple in Illinois.

I just wanted to say how thrilled I am to have found your website, book, and resources.  I have looked into NFP before, and it always sounded so clinical and like a lot of work.  I read your book last night and am thoroughly confident that this is the right choice for myself, my husband, and our family.  You have made it so easy to understand, and not cold and clinical.  —A married couple in Vancouver, British Columbia.
(This insert in the Aug. 13th blog and this Aug. 20th blog was in the St. Lawrence church bulletin, July 21 and July 28.)

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week by Father Mark Watkins, pastor, St. Lawrence Church, Cincinnati

The purpose of NFP Awareness Week is to let all Catholics—and non-Catholics too—know that the Church provides very practical help for couples to live out the teaching of Humanae Vitae.  I hope that it also helps couples to believe and follow its tremendously necessary teaching.

On July 25, 1968 Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical that reaffirmed 2,000 years of Catholic teaching about birth control.  It became controversial simply because it reaffirmed what the Catholic Church has been teaching for some 2,000 years.  Why was that controversial?  Pope Pius XI had done the same thing in 1930, and there was no controversy within the Catholic Church.  Why were things so different 49 years ago?

The controversy was stirred up beginning in 1960 with the introduction of the hormonal birth control drugs.  The manner of operation of chemical birth control was different from the contraceptive devices that were common before then.  Some Catholics argued that Catholic teaching could accept this new mode of birth control because it wasn’t so obviously contraceptive.  (It turned out to be much worse because it affects the lining of the uterus to resist implantation of a newly conceived baby in its embryonic stage.  This is what is called the abortifacient potential of the Pill and other hormonal forms of birth control.)

Pope Paul VI reviewed the arguments of those on both sides of the issue.  He clearly saw that the arguments of those who wanted the Church to accept marital contraception could not say a firm NO to any imaginable form of sexual behavior between consenting adults.  Thus he was obliged by his responsibility as the Supreme Pastor of souls to reaffirm that all unnatural forms of birth control are the grave matter of mortal sin.

He also predicted that the widespread acceptance of marital contraception would have far reaching negative consequences.  For that he was also criticized, but the negative effects have been even worse than he foretold.

Still, some may ask, “Why is there all this fuss about Humanae Vitae and birth control?

The answer is very basic:  What is at stake is the divine truth about human love and your salvation!
(Continued and concluded next week)