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The Needs of Natural Family Planning International

Sunday, April 12th, 2015

The primary mission of NFP International is to promote and teach Natural Family Planning. This includes ecological breastfeeding, systematic NFP, marital chastity, and the call to generosity in having children and raising them in the ways of the Lord.

NFPI is unique in its teaching of Ecological Breastfeeding and the renewal-of-the-marriage covenant theology that is so easy to grasp.  NFPI is also unique as an effort of the New Evangelization, specifically addressing the question “Why should I believe what the Catholic Church teaches about birth control?”  NFPI may also be unique in transmitting Catholic moral teaching regarding love, marriage, and sexuality.  The importance of this is made clear when people tell us that they have engaged for years in immoral practices in the fertile time, saying they were never told about chaste abstinence in their natural family planning course.

So I beg for your help.  The biggest issue in the Church today and for the past 50 years has been sexual morality.  The widespread acceptance of unnatural forms of birth control has led to the acceptance of sodomy—both heterosexual and homosexual—and now to same-sex marriage.  Neither the Church nor the country can truly prosper without a renewal of marital chastity.

The Humanae Vitae apostolate is the most difficult in the Church.  It is the only one that is actively opposed by many in the Church.  It is also actively ignored, if I can use that phrase, even by some who hold leadership positions within the Church.  That’s why I and my fellow teachers so greatly appreciate your support.

We ask your prayers and sacrifices and financial support for the NFPI apostolate.   Please donate to NFP International so that we can continue serving the Church in this ministry.

Stephen Craig
Executive Director

NFPI

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What Kind of Natural Family Planning is Needed by the Church

Sunday, March 1st, 2015

Regarding the Synod and Humanae Vitae, I suspect that there will be a verbal affirmation of the encyclical.  My concern is more about prudence.

A committee of the US Bishops in 1989 urged that every engaged couple should be required to attend a full course on natural family planning as a normal part of preparation for marriage.  But what constitutes a full course?  That is a key question.

In my opinion, couples learning NFP under such circumstances deserve to learn all the common signs of fertility and infertility so that they can make a well informed choice about what signs they want to use or not use.  And that includes ecological breastfeeding according to the seven standards.  How can they make informed choices if this information is not taught?

They also deserve to learn the physiological aspects of NFP in the context of Catholic evangelization and morality and the call to be generous in having children to be raised in the ways of the Lord. In the last analysis, once an “avoiding” couple understand the health hazards and abortifacient properties of hormonal birth control and the esthetic and effectiveness problems of barriers, the moral and practical choice boils down to fertility awareness with either marital chastity or the use of masturbation and/or marital sodomy during the fertile time.  The unchaste behaviors are certainly NOT what is needed or intended by Catholic endorsements of NFP.

It is my understanding that most of the NFP instruction manuals and programs avoid saying anything specific about masturbation and marital sodomy.  We have to assume that many of  our “required” students are unfortunately already experienced in sinful sexual experiences. We have to assume that when they hear “abstinence” many will think of past experience as a way to get around it.  In my opinion, that’s why Catholic-sponsored NFP needs to be taught in the context of Christian discipleship.  

John F. Kippley
www.NFPandmore.org

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Natural Family Planning: Three Basic Realities

Sunday, February 22nd, 2015
Within the Catholic Church there is a great concern about a growing social acceptance of same-sex “marriage” even among Catholics.  However, with more than  95% of fertile-age married Catholics contravening Catholic teaching regarding birth control, what else can be expected?  It is this widespread acceptance of unnatural forms of birth control that has also given us widespread acceptance of homosexual sodomy parading as marriage.  So what can be done?
 
    I suggest that bishops need to get their priests on board with Humanae Vitae and provide the right kind of instruction before marriage.  What is generally offered now is very deficient.    This needs to start in 7th grade and continue through the high school years, and attitude formation needs to start with preparation for Holy Communion and Penance.   By the time a couple is married, they need to have internalized at least three basic realities.
 
1.  Sexual union is intended by God to be exclusively a marriage act.  Within marriage it ought to be a renewal of the faith, love, and for-better-and-for-worse commitment of their marriage covenant.  And marriage is an unbreakable covenant.
 
2.  Breasts are for breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding is so much better than alternative ways of baby-feeding that couples really need a serious reason not to breastfeed.  The kind of breastfeeding they should practice is Ecological breastfeeding according to the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding.   Only this form of breastfeeding will normally provide an average of two years of spacing between babies.  It also maximizes all the dose-related emotional and health benefits of breastfeeding.   This should be taught starting in grade school. 
 
3.  They should know  all the common signs of fertility, not just the mucus sign taught by some almost fanatical proponents who either teach nothing about the temperature and cervix signs or cast aspersions on them.  In other words, engaged couples should have sufficient information so that they, not their teachers, can make informed choices.
John F. Kippley

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