Natural Family Planning International

If Catholics truly believe (and it is an act of faith in the revisionists who have given us the sexual revolution) that it is morally permissible for married couples to use unnatural methods and behaviors of birth control, how can they not also believe that same-sex sodomy and “marriage” are morally permissible?  And what’s wrong with fornication if the partners use contraception, thus losing the “fear of pregnancy” reason for girls to say “no”?  This is the standard stuff among the revisionists.

Self-styled revisionist Michael Valente was logical when he wrote (published in 1970) that in rejecting the teaching of Humanae Vitae, he and his fellow revisionists were also rejecting the entire natural law theory on which it is based.  To make his point, he noted that this entailed their acceptance of bestiality.  After all, he argued, who are we to say that bestiality might not be helpful for a young man struggling with sexual temptations?

The bishops “hot potato” treatment of Humanae Vitae has resulted in losing not just a few Catholics or even many but almost all– if the numbers are to be believed.  No wonder that Cardinal Kaspar is trying to open the doors to divorced and remarried Catholics without a declaration of nullity.  The German bishops were in the lead in not accepting Humanae Vitae.  Their people have been living basically secular married sexuality so they are suffering the same consequences of marital breakdown.  In Germany, the Church gets lots of
money from the State.  So it is clear that the bishops are largely responsible for the death of the Church in Germany.

This is why I continue like a broken record with my plea.  The US Bishops’ Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices was right in 1989 when it urged that every engaged couple should be required to participate in a full course on natural family planning as a normal part of preparation for marriage.  I would add that a “full course” ought to include all the commons signs of fertility; Ecological Breastfeeding as best for babies and also a natural way of spacing babies; Catholic moral teaching about marital sexuality; the call to generosity; and St. John Paul II’s renewal-of-the-marriage-covenant theology to explain and support the teaching of Humanae Vitae.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant

I tend to think the danger from silent bishops is greater than from the arrogant state.  Yes, the state can shut down our humanitarian organizations, but how many Catholic hospitals and social service organizations are truly Catholic these days?  Just recently I heard a woman comment about the sterilizations done in one of our local Catholic hospitals.

Out of fear of losing their people, most of our bishops have treated Humanae Vitae as a “hot potato” to quote Cardinal Dolan, citing his own experience. How many teachers in our Catholic schools agree in faith and practice with Humanae Vitae?  The problem is not just the sinfulness of contracepting married Catholic teachers.  The problem is also that when teachers repudiate the teaching of Humanae Vitae, they are also repudiating the ordinary teaching authority of the Church.

In his manner of speaking, Saint John Paul II has left no room for doubt that the doctrine of marital non-contraception reaffirmed by Casti Connubii, Humanae Vitae, and Familiaris Consortio must be believed and put into practice.  He has taught that

• to hold out for exceptions as if God’s grace were not sufficient is a form of atheism (September 17, 1983);
• denying the doctrine of marital non-contraception is “equivalent to denying the Catholic concept of revelation” (April 10, 1986);
• it is a teaching whose truth is beyond discussion (June 5, 1987);
• it is a “teaching which belongs to the permanent patrimony of the Church’s moral doctrine” and “a truth which cannot be questioned” (March 14, 1988);
• it is a teaching which is intrinsic to our human nature and that calling it into question “is equivalent to refusing God himself the obedience of our intelligence” (November 12, 1988) and, finally,
• “what is being questioned by rejecting that teaching . . . is the very idea of the holiness of God´(November 12, 1988). [This list was taken from Sex and the Marriage Covenant, page 148.]

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant