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The Covenant Theology: Is It Helpful for Natural Family Planning?

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Since I first began to enunciate the covenant theology of human sexuality in 1967, I have had little or no criticism from orthodox Catholics. Thus it was surprising to learn that Father Richard Hogan has pejoratively labeled it as deductive, objective, and principled and therefore irrelevant in a day when thinking is inductive and subjective. Not just once did he level those allegations in a public forum, but twice. I wrote him twice by email (12/05/2006 and 04/20/2007) and asked him to explain what he meant, but he has not replied. The irony of this dismissal of my work is that it was done in the context of promoting the papal theology of the body (TOB), a work that is commonly thought to be about self-giving love, i.e., charity.

Father Hogan is known as a defender of Humanae Vitae, and it’s not pleasant to criticize one of the few priests who have national reputations for upholding that teaching, but public accusations invite a public response. Father Hogan is also on the Board of Directors of the Couple to Couple League and apparently has a lot of the responsibility for replacing, in CCL’s new teaching program, the covenant theology of sexuality with his interpretation of the papal TOB. So, until Father Hogan lets me know what he means by his allegations of “deductive, objective and principled” etc., I don’t know what to think of his statements. Perhaps there is something to them. On the other hand, perhaps he has never looked seriously at the covenant theology of sexuality and doesn’t understand it, or perhaps his comments are simply that familiar form of promotion that starts with bashing one alternative instead of promoting another alternative on its own merits. He also said that the covenant theology of sexuality is “arguably” more difficult to understand than the papal TOB, a statement that strikes me as far off the mark.

In actuality, the covenant theology of sexuality is extremely easy to understand. It can be stated in 17 words: “Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant.” I suggest that the person who cannot grasp that the marriage act really ought to be a true marriage act may lack the capacity to enter into marriage.

It is also easy to explain. God invented sex, God has a plan for sex, and God has revealed that sexual intercourse is meant to be exclusively a marriage act. When husband and wife engage in the marriage act, they ought to be renewing the love and the lifelong gift of self they pledged when they married each other.

The covenant theology is realistic, and thus the words “at least implicitly” are important. They mean that the spouses do not have to be consciously thinking “I want to renew my marriage covenant with you” as they approach the marriage act. At the least, however, the spouses must not be acting against the love they pledged at marriage. The covenant concept helps spouses to see that the physical expression of their love for each other in the marriage act ought to express the caring love and commitment of their wedding day when they pledged their love “for better and for worse until death do us part.” That is, the covenant insight helps spouses to see that the sex act is not just a way to have sexual pleasure or just a way to try to have a baby. Adulterers and fornicators do the former and some unmarried folks do it for the latter reason. But married couples are invited to understand that the marriage act ought to express and renew the self-gift they made without reservation on their wedding day. The covenant concept gives meaning to the sex act. It gives unmarried persons a meaningful reason to postpone sexual activity until they are married.

I have written somewhat on this subject, and I invite you to read “A Covenant Theology of Sex” that was published in 1983. Or, if you want the long route, go to www.NFPandmore.org, then to NFP Resources, then NFP Articles, and as of this writing it’s the 17th item in the column. I hope you’ll keep going back for other articles as well.

How is the covenant theology of sexuality helpful for natural family planning? As mentioned above, this concept helps spouses to understand more fully the God-given meaning of the marriage act. It also helps them to understand why contraceptive behaviors are wrong. When we marry, we marry “for better and for worse” or we don’t marry at all. That means that if one or both of the spouses go through a wedding ceremony with the idea that “I’m giving this person exactly one year to meet my expectations or I’m out the door,” that’s not a marriage no matter how elaborate the ceremony. That sort of arrangement would be an invalid marriage, null and void from the beginning. It would beg for a legal divorce and declaration of nullity.

In the authentic marriage act, the spouses are implicitly saying with their bodily actions, “We take each other once again, for better and for worse.” But in the contracepted sex act between spouses, they are saying with their bodily actions, “We take each other once again, but definitely NOT for the imagined worse of possible pregnancy.” Such an action contradicts the “for better and for worse” of the marriage covenant. It pretends to be what it is not. Such pretense is dishonest, and therefore the act is objectively sinful. I believe that this is what Pope Paul VI had in mind when he wrote in Humanae Vitae that marital contraception is “intrinsically dishonest” (n.14).

The covenant concept is also helpful for teachers of natural family planning. They can ask, “When is having sex truly ‘making love’?” They can answer the question by explaining the Christian Tradition. First of all, the entire biblical Tradition teaches us that sexual intercourse ought to be exclusively a marriage act. Every other sexual act is condemned in the pages of the Bible. (For more on that, see Chapter 17, “Biblical Foundations,” in my Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality.) Second, within marriage, sexual intercourse ought to be a symbol of the self-giving love they pledged at marriage, a true renewal of their marriage covenant. Third, the teacher can point out the content of the previous paragraph, namely, that marital contraception contradicts the “for better and for worse” of the marriage covenant and thus renders the action dishonest as a true marriage act –- and thus objectively sinful.

Sometimes it may be helpful to preface such an explanation by getting the agreement of NFP course attendees that not every act of sexual intercourse within marriage is automatically a true marriage act. The most obvious example is marital rape. Marriage is not a license to do any and every sexual act that can be imagined. It is not a license for one spouse to demand sex from a spouse who has a very good reason to refuse it. It is not a license to physically force a spouse into sexual submission. It ought to be a renewal of the caring, committed love pledged at marriage. If people agree that any one form of sex contradicts the marriage covenant, then in principle they agree that other forms of sex can also contradict the marriage covenant.

Explaining the sin of marital contraception in terms of dishonesty may have more effect with some than teaching that it is a form of lust. In our culture, it seems almost a point of pride to call oneself lustful or to be known as that by others, but I suspect that very few people like to think of themselves as dishonest or want others to think of them in that way.

In brief, the covenant theology of sexuality with its teaching that the marriage act needs to be a TRUE marriage act offers a platform from which teachers can more fully explain the true marital meaning of sexual intercourse. The fact that the marriage act is intended by God to be more than just a legal means for the release of sexual tension may come as a surprise to some engaged and married couples. Some may be surprised to learn that mutual masturbation and marital sodomy contradict the marriage covenant. Others may know this in their hearts but need to hear it clearly stated. Almost no one will be offended to learn that the marriage act really ought to reflect the covenant they made with God and with each other on their wedding day. On the other hand, it may be that few have previously connected their marriage covenant with the physical expression of that covenant in the marriage act.

It is, of course, necessary to flesh out such teaching with the gospel message of love. Whether engaged, newly married, or married a long time, we all need to be reminded that nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus tell us that loving is easy. If it were easy, would He command us to love one another? That this applies to loving one’s spouse is evident to anyone who knows anything about marriage.

In summary, NFP teachers who explain the evil of marital contraception in terms of the marriage covenant do their students a lifelong favor. Pope John Paul II incorporated the covenant renewal concept into his own teaching in his 1994 Letter to Families, (n. 12). The covenant theology of sexuality has not been rendered obsolete by the papal TOB; it remains a valuable tool for conveying the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.

For further study about the relationship of the covenant theology and the papal TOB, see “John Kippley’s Covenant Theology of Sex” by Tracy Jamison at www.nfpandmore.org/fa_jameson.shtml.

Sheila Kippley will offer daily blogs on breastfeeding during Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, July 22-28.I will offer blogs dealing with Humanae Vitae on July 23, 25, and 27 at the blogsite at www.cuf.org.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, free and downloadable e-book available at www.NFPandmore.org.

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What’s Important for a “Successful” Marriage?

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

What do Americans think is important for a successful marriage? According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 41% of those surveyed thought that having and rearing children was “very important” for a successful marriage. This contrasted sharply with a 1990 survey that found 65% of respondents saying that children were “very important to a good marriage.”

Such published results beg for critical analysis and interpretation. For example, what is a “successful marriage”? What are the criteria for success? What were the questions? How were they asked? Were the respondents forced to make a ranking of various factors as first, second, etc. or could they rank every factor as very important, important, etc.? Could they balance factors or did they have to put one ahead of another?

Then there’s the problem of prior interpretation. I read about the Pew survey in a copyrighted AP story on CNN.com updated as of July 2, 2007. To what extent has the text of the original study been selectively edited along the way?

It appears that respondents had to rank various factors for their relative importance for a successful marriage. If success is defined as lack of conflict, then it is easy to understand why children were ranked in eighth out of nine places, behind “sharing household chores,” “good housing,” “adequate income,” “happy sexual relationship” and “faithfulness.” Any seasoned observer knows that difficulties and tensions come with children. Further, the normal challenges of raising children are aggravated today by constant reminders of how expensive children are. The usually quoted figures are astronomical and highly unrealistic for most families, but they contribute to the fear of having children.

The survey also found that by a margin of almost 3 to 1 the respondents said that the main purpose of marriage was the “mutual happiness and fulfillment” of the spouses as contrasted with the “bearing and raising of children.” Here it appears that respondents were forced to rank one above the other. The story did not indicate if they could rate them as equal purposes of marriage.

These survey results came from 2,020 American respondents via a telephone survey in February and March. Is any of this surprising? The article quoted Barbara Defoe Whitehead about the culture in which these respondents live. “The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults… Child-rearing values — sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity — seem stale and musty by comparison.”

Despite the problems inherent in the study and its editing, the survey may reflect contemporary culture fairly well. So what is to be done? One social critic said that the downgrading of the importance of children may reflect “America’s relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave and subsidized child care.” I have to wonder. They have those things in some of the European countries whose attitude toward childen is reflected in birth rates below the 2.1 replacement level.

So again, what can be done to help change contemporary attitudes towards having children?

First of all, it seems to me, we need to improve the cultural meaning of a successful marriage. Certainly we have to aim higher than the mere absence of conflict and tensions. How about a notion of success that measures the success of marriage by the criterion of helping each other on the path to eternal happiness with God? That would lead to some rephrasing of survey questions. How about this: “What factors are important for a successful marriage defined as one that prepares all family members to be welcomed by the Lord on the day of their earthly deaths?” Let’s modify the wording so that the children factor is listed as “having and raising children in the ways of the Lord Jesus.” Lastly, let’s give respondents the opportunity to list both purposes of marriage — the procreation & education of children and the total welfare of the spouses. Both-and instead of either-or. Actually, having a sufficient number of children is sociologically the most important because without a sufficient number of children the society will disappear.

Second, let’s hear from Christian pulpits all across the country the call to recognize that marriage is about family, that having children is not an option like having a ranch or a two-story house. How about hearing from the pulpit some words of congratulation and praise for parents of large families? How about hearing in pre-marriage courses, NFP courses, baptism courses, and from the pulpit that it’s morally wrong to use contraceptive behaviors? How about hearing that we need a sufficiently serious reason to use systematic NFP for avoiding pregnancy, that we are called to generosity not selfishness, that the two-child family as an ideal is a recipe for the destruction of society as we know it? How about hearing about ecological breastfeeding with all its advantages for baby and mother plus its natural spacing effects?

Third, let’s hear it from the pulpit every year that marriage really is for keeps. Let’s hear our priests remind us about the sins that lead to adultery and the breakup of marriages. Just today I learned of a father of several children who has been living adulterously for a year and has recently left his family and wants to marry or do whatever with the other woman, a mother of several children. What happened? I guess he found out that his spouse is imperfect. Well, of course his spouse and your spouse and every spouse is imperfect. He should have been looking at his own faults and counting his blessings instead of engaging in x-rated daydreams and behaviors.

The time is past when the leaders of the Church and society could take marriage and family for granted. I keep hearing over and over again from the pulpit that we are called to share the faith with others. How about our bishops, priests and deacons sharing the faith from the pulpit? Dear reader, how often have you heard from the pulpit that seeking after happiness, even in marriage, is illusory? that happiness comes not from seeking it but from seeking first the kingdom of God? And that this applies in every aspect of life including marriage? None of this is new. It’s all in the gospel. But to paraphrase Romans 10, how can people be expected to believe it if they don’t hear it preached to them?

The bottom line is that the answer to our family and other cultural problems is the Lord Jesus. We need to hear his teaching applied in specifics to these problems.

My thanks to the gentleman who asked me to comment on the study. You can find the AP article by clicking here.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, readable, free and downloadable e-book available at
www.NFPandmore.org

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The Value of Rule B and Rule C

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

“In my 30 years in Brazil, I saw many promising apostolates rise and then fall as they abandoned the charisms of their founders.” —-Bishop Karl Jozef Romer, Pontifical Council for the Family, 2002 CCL Convention.

In the stated effort to simplify the teaching, the learning, and the use of the NFP method to be taught by the Couple to Couple League, its current management has dropped some of CCL’s traditional rules in favor of what they now call one rule. I challenge that description because it looks like three rules to me. In my last blog I told why I think it is a mistake to abandon the sympto-thermal Rule K as an excellent way to determine the start of Phase Three, postovulation infertility. In this commentary, I want to address the possible abandonment of Rule B and Rule C as well as the concept of one rule for several situations.

Rule C

The “C” in Rule C stood for Cautious and Conservative. For most couples it was excessively conservative. As we stated in the Fourth Edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning, Rule C “requires BOTH three consecutive days of full thermal shift AND four days of drying-up.” I don’t know if it added anything by way of effectiveness to the other sympto-thermal rules, but it was an option that probably gave added confidence to couples with a very serious need to avoid pregnancy. A 3-day full thermal shift crosschecking four days of drying up presents a visually strong indication of postovulation infertility to anyone who is adequately informed.

Rule B

The “B” in Rule B stood for “Billings” in honor of his work, but it was a sympto-thermal rule. That meant that we wanted a sufficient temperature cross-check on the four days of drying-up. At first glance it appears that one of the rules or options in CCL’s new system is identical to Rule B, but that’s not the case. According to what we have heard, the temperature requirement in Rule B is stronger than the option in CCL’s new system.

Dr. Josef Roetzer

The management and staff at CCL claim that their new system is based on that of Dr. Josef Roetzer. That seems to be true. They also claim that the new system has only one rule and that it is therefore easier to teach, understand and use. I have not seen Dr. Roetzer making such claims. I admire his work that started in the Fifties and has continued into the present time. In Austria and Germany he has faced difficulties that may well be worse than what we have faced in the States. We are indebted to him and are grateful for whatever progress he has made in Europe and in the States as well.

One rule or three rules?

As I understand it, the basic Roetzer postovulation rule is a 3 + 3 rule: Phase Three starts on the evening of Peak-plus-3 crosschecked by three days of thermal shift, all above the low temperature level (LTL) with the last one at the High Temperature Level (HTL). That’s the basis for the Rule R (for Roetzer) we wrote into The Art of Natural Family Planning many years ago. Call that Rule One.

The confusion or contention starts when the pattern doesn’t meet both of those criteria. As I understand it from listening to CCL recordings, the Roetzer system has two more options.

In one of them, if the temps are above the LTL but not at the HTL, three days of a closed (not just closing) and firm cervix confirm the three days of drying-up and slightly elevated temps. Call that Rule Two.

A third alternative is used when Rule Two does not apply. In this alternative, once again Peak Day plus 3 is not confirmed by an adequate temperature rise. In this third situation, you wait until Peak Day plus 4. If on P + 4 there are four days of temps above the LTL by any amount, you can consider the evening of P + 4 the start of Phase Three. Again, that means that if on Peak + 4 you have four temps that are only one-tenth of one degree F above the LTL, you could apply this rule. Call that Rule Three.

The need to make distinctions

My concerns are twofold. One has to do with merchandising, the other with methodology.

When Dr. Prem and Sheila and I were the dominant influences at CCL, we made distinctions. When two situations were clearly different from one another, we gave them two different names. It seems to me that in the options above, there are three different situations. I am not at all persuaded that clarity is well served by saying they are all examples of the same rule but just different adaptations. In short, the “one-rule” language looks to me like mere merchandising. In the old CCL we had four sympto-thermal Phase Three rules that were clearly distinguished on the basis of the strength of the temperature pattern and the days of drying-up. We now call this the Kippley-Prem system to distinguish it from whatever CCL is doing or will do. In the K-P method or system, When the temperature pattern is very strong, fewer days of drying-up are needed as a crosscheck. We give these four situations four different labels to distinguish between them. I can still recall one of my college philosophy teachers telling us repeatedly, “bene docuit qui bene distinguit” — “he teaches well who distinguishes well.”

Thus I find it confusing to recognize three different situations and then to group them together and call it just one rule. This has nothing to do with the merits of any of the three rules, just the terminology.

My concern about methodology is illustrated by Figure 14.6 in the Fourth Edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning. It is an unplanned pregnancy chart that is confused by the fact that the couple did not follow the rules at either end of the fertile time. That is, the couple apparently ignored four of the standard Phase One practices, but they still stopped marital relations once the wife began recording mucus. The last marriage act in Phase One was on Day 8, mucus recording started on Day 9, and Peak Day was Day 12. On Days 14,15, and 16, the temperatures were all two-tenths of one degree F. above the LTL. Day 16 was Peak + 4 cross-checked by three days of temps above the LTL, but no temp had reached the HTL. The couple engaged in the marriage act on Day 16. They became pregnant. Did the pregnancy result from the marriage act on Day 8 or on Day 16? We simply do not know. Researchers have told us that ovulation sometimes occurs as early as Peak Day minus 3 and as late as Peak Day plus 3. Pregnancy could have resulted from the marriage act on Day 8 or Day 16 without taking any sort of small miracle to explain it.

The couple who submitted the chart in Fig. 14.6 knew that in their previous cycles the temperature shift was a clear four-tenths to six-tenths of one degree F above the LTL. They knew the temperature pattern by Day 16 was not like their previous experience, but they were not motivated to avoid pregnancy.

Rule B and Dr. Roetzer

In this case, the CCL Rule B would require them to wait two more days for a temperature reading at the HTL. We are told that Dr. Roetzer has had excellent experience with the rule calling for P + 4 crosschecked by a minimal rise in temps, but I have not seen any research published on it. I am also told that Dr. Roetzer tells couples to interpret the current cycle in terms of their previous cycle experience. If that were followed here, the couple would have waited two more days. So, the rule may not be so simple as it appears at first. Maybe the rule really is that you can use P + 4 with a mininimal rise in temps IF you have established from previous cycles that this is your common pattern. I would have no problem with that, and we addressed that situation in Figure 5.5 of the Fourth Edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning. So we will have to wait to see if CCL attaches the same qualifier that Dr. Roetzer apparently uses. (By the way, in the text for Figure 5.5 we note that we have never seen a shift of only two-tenths of one degree F above the LTL. That means a sustained thermal shift of the kind used for making decisions. Of course we have seen partial shifts on the way up to the high temperature level.)

Abandonment of Rule B and other CCL rules

And if that is the case, what sense is there in abandoning Rule B? If we understand what CCL is doing with its allegedly simplified, streamlined system (to use their marketing adjectives) it’s much ado about nothing or a lot of fuss over having less. It appears that CCL teachers are being asked to accept the loss of Rule C, the loss of Rule B, and the loss of Rule K with their clear distinctions. In return they are being asked to accept a basic rule that is essentially Rule R, another rule that is something like Rule B but lacks its high temperature requirement, another rule that accepts a low temp rise when there are three days of closed cervix to crosscheck the days of drying-up, and to call all of these a streamlined one-rule sytem.

The Kippley-Prem system

Our friends in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been “competing” with the Roetzer system for some years. They have great respect for Dr. Roetzer and his teachers, but they have not been persuaded to adopt that system. They intend to keep what we now call the Kippley-Prem system. They are aware of a situation where some CCL-trained teachers were retrained in the Roetzer system and then wanted to return to the Kippley-Prem system. In our friends’ experience, couples who are acquainted with both systems are very happy with the clear distinctions and rules in the K-P system.

John F. Kippley
Author, Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, a short, free, downloadable e-book available at the home page of www.NFPandmore.org.

Posted in CCL, Sympto-Thermal Method | 1 Comment »

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