For a retreat sponsored by Presentation Ministries in early May, John was given the subject “Radiating Christ in our Parishes.” He did as requested, somewhat reluctantly. The talk was so well received that two couples wanted a copy to take to their pastor. The talk is only 35 minutes. I think many of our readers will enjoy this talk. Please listen to:
The axiom that a house divided against itself cannot stand applies in part to the failure of the local Church to incorporate natural family planning instruction into the work of evangelization. Pope Paul VI, the author of Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World), is also well known as the author of Humanae Vitae in which he proposed that followers of Christ may have to carry the burden of a large family or the cross of the chaste periodic abstinence required by systematic natural family planning. Unfortunately, some of those who glory in calling themselves conservatives castigate systematic NFP as selfish, and those who glory in calling themselves liberal want a cross-less Christianity regarding marital sexuality.
Both camps ignore how the right kind of NFP course can be a great agent of evangelization both within the Church and among truth-seeking non-Catholics. Yes, we have seen truth-seeking anti-Catholics and even atheists approach and then enter the Church after having learned a complete form of systematic NFP, plus ecological breastfeeding, plus a covenant theology that places all of this in the context of Christian discipleship.
Also damaging to evangelization is that almost no one in the hierarchical Church seems to be doing anything to promote breastfeeding despite the fact that it is the most charitable thing a mother can do for her baby. Doctor Ruth Lawrence, an expert in this area, sums it up succinctly: “Breastfeeding is the most precious gift a mother can give her infant. If there is illness or infection, it may be a life-saving gift. If there is poverty, it may be the only gift.”
So when are Catholic parishes and missions all throughout the world going to be known as places that encourage and support breastfeeding? And if they really want to evangelize, when are they going to promote and teach ecological breastfeeding? Mothers who follow its Seven Standards, which allow baby’s frequent and unrestricted suckling, truly DO experience a delayed return of fertility—–on average about 14 to 15 months. Much more on this at the NFPI website.
John F. Kippley
One NFP instructor said: The philosophy of the mucus-only method she taught “is that every woman is entitled to the knowledge of her fertility, so religion is not a part of the instruction in this method” even though the founders of the method were Catholic. Below is John’s response.
John: Much more important than every woman’s right to understand her fertility is her right to know God’s plan for the proper use of her sexuality. The Great Commission of the Lord Jesus at his Ascension called for the apostles and their successors and co-workers to tell the Good News to the entire world, and to teach everything that he had commanded them. Romans 10 is highly applicable to the message of marital chastity. To paraphrase, How can people be saved unless they believe and act properly, and how can they believe unless someone tells them…?
The Church is in a horrible crisis today, and much of the problem is that too many bishops and priests and others have treated the teaching of Humanae Vitae with benign neglect. Unfortunately, with all the talk about the Obama theft of First Amendment rights from Catholics, the bishops have continued their relative silence on the moral, psychological, and physical evils of the contraceptive drugs etc. to be given free to everyone who wants them. At the same time, the leaders of the Church are calling for a New Evangelization in which Catholics and others will become aware that it is Jesus Himself who is the Author of the teachings of the Church.
The subject matter of the NFP movement is at the heart of the sexuality crisis in the world, and a biology-only approach is no longer sufficient, if it ever was. Participation in this movement is a privilege, and it is also a call to exercise the New Evangelization. This is not the time to hide under a bushel basket the very light that leads us.
Everyone has a God-given right to know that sexual intercourse is intended by God to be exclusively a marriage act between heterosexual spouses married to each other. Everyone has a right to know that the marriage act ought to reaffirm the original marriage covenant.
Everyone has a God-given right to know about Ecological Breastfeeding, the kind of breastfeeding that really does provide a natural, abstinence-free, spacing of babies.
Everyone has a God-given right to know the common, easily taught and detected signs of fertility and infertility.
And everyone has a right and a need to know that, despite Judas and his spiritual descendants, the Lord Jesus did give us a visible and tangible way of knowing the truth about the meaning of love and sexuality, namely, the Catholic Church led by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a guidance promised repeatedly at the Last Supper. That’s part of the New Evangelization to which all Catholics are called.
John F. Kippley
Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach
Sex and the Marriage Covenant
Battle-Scarred: Justice Can Be Elusive