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Natural Family Planning: Why NFPI is important

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

This is Part Three of our Lenten-Easter appeal. 

The right kind of NFP course.  In my opinion, the NFP course that is going to advance the evangelization mission of the Church needs to be more than some classes on the human reproductive system.  Sheila and I are convinced that every NFP program should promote and teach ecological breastfeeding as a form of natural family planning.  We are convinced that every NFP program should teach against specific immoral behaviors to which couples are tempted during times of abstinence from the completed marriage act.  We are convinced that all NFP programs should teach about all the common signs of fertility and infertility even if certain programs want to specialize in only one sign.  After all, if God made woman in such a way that she has three easily observed signs, who am I or anyone else to withhold that information?  For better or for worse, however, it is our understanding that NFP International (NFPI) is unique in holding these convictions and putting them into practice. 

So what is NFP International all about and what is it doing?

NFP International is all about making the right kind of NFP course universally available at very affordable costs.  After our separation in 2003 from CCL, we wrote a short NFP manual, Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book.  It’s been available at our website since 2005, and it was quickly accepted as a Home Study Course by the USCCB office for NFP.  We recently used it to teach a classroom course, and we thoroughly enjoyed that experience.  Since it is available to download for free, we do not know how many people use it, but we are happy to report that in 2007 the NFPI website had visitors from 126 countries.  In the last few months, we have done lots of work on the manual, making it slightly longer but with a shortened title.  In the fourth week of Lent, we posted a revised version of Natural Family Planning, still less than 100 pages. Please take a look.  You may be interested particularly in Chapter 1 that deals with the “what and why” of NFP.

We are also serious about supporting international NFP efforts.  Since mid-2005 we have provided the salary of the full-time director of CCL of Slovakia.  Their former parent organization discontinued its support for NFP organizations in which the language of instruction was not in English or Spanish.  Our support of CCL of Slovakia has been our main expense for almost the last three years, and we are delighted to provide this support.  Its director visited with almost 50 priests last year, trying to persuade them to require NFP instruction as part of preparation for marriage.  I wonder who else in the whole world is making that kind of effort!  The efforts he is making show why a mostly-volunteer organization needs at least a few full-time employees.  We believe the efforts he is making in Slovakia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are definitely worth supporting, and we are proud to ask for your support.  And please rejoice with us that the website of NFP International is getting visits from so many countries. 

Our initial intention in 2004-2005 was to limit our efforts to the website and make it the “go-to” site for online NFP instruction and for related research and theology.  We had no intention of getting into classroom instruction again.   However, some NFP teachers contacted us about using our materials.  We worked with a couple in Denver to develop teaching notes, and they quickly developed a PowerPoint presentation.  In seven states we now have teachers or will have them very soon.  This is moving as fast as we can handle it. 

So why are we telling all of this to you?  As you can guess, we need your support.  If you believe in the importance of promoting marital chastity, please support the work of NFPI with your prayers and your funds.  Financial support can be sent to NFPI, P. O. Box 11216, Cincinnati OH 45211.  Your donation is tax deductible and we will greatly appreciate your help. 

Next Week:  NFP and Teaching Chastity….

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning (e-book at www.nfpandmore.org)

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Natural Family Planning: Why NFP Is Important

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Every election cycle raises the hope that shining knights will be nominated, elected, and will give us decisive life-protecting victories in the Courts and the legislatures.  And every post-election-day Wednesday makes it clear that the majority of the voters are not ready for such a change.  To put it more clearly, the Wednesdays after voting-Tuesdays make it clear that the culture of death still reigns.  Decisions and policies that protect and even encourage the killing of 4,000 innocent unborn babies each day have received hardly a word of discussion from the front runners and the pundits in the primary election cycle.

In 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey that abortion was too much a part of the American people’s social life and expectations to be stopped by law.  The decision says volumes about the grip the Sexual Revolution has upon our country with its disregard for honest marital love and its “need” for abortion to dispose of the human effects of sexual immorality. 

Last October, I presented in brief form a paper on the sexual revolution at the annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.  It was very well received, and I am happy to share it with you now as a two-part article at our website.  Part 1 shows that the sexual revolution did not start with the Pill in 1960 but rather with the neo-Malthusians in 1823.  Part 2 calls for practical steps to be taken by the Catholic Church. 

Here are some basic realities that ecclesial leaders need to face and then use to form effective policies and actions.

•There will be no stopping abortion without a rebirth of chastity.
•There will be no rebirth of premarital chastity without a rebirth of marital chastity.  The sexual revolution started with the marital acceptance of unnatural forms of birth control, and it is easier for married couples to practice chastity than it is for singles.
•There will be no widespread rejection of marital contraception without a widespread acceptance of natural family planning.
•There will be no widespread acceptance of NFP without a concerted and sustained effort on the part of Catholic bishops and priests to make sure that all Catholics understand what the Church teaches and form their consciences accordingly. 
•In the current situation of Catholics with culturally formed consciences, that means that bishops and priests need to exercise their leverage so that Catholics will have every opportunity to form their consciences according to the truths about love, marriage and human sexuality taught by Christ through his Church. 
•Bishops and priests have the God-given authority to require engaged couples to take a full course on natural family planning as a normal part of preparation for marriage, and they need to do so. 

These suggested actions will go a long way, when enacted, to show that the teaching authorities in the Church are not just quoting the “official” teaching but actually believe it.  Better yet, it gives our teaching authorities a chance to show that they truly believe that the practice of NFP, whether ecological breastfeeding or systematic NFP, is much more of a blessing than a burden.  Efforts to help Catholics and others to form their consciences according to Humanae Vitae give our ecclesial teachers a powerful example of what Jesus was talking about when He taught, “Come to me… Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. . .  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt.11: 28-30).

If my bulleted opinions above are well grounded in reality, then the NFP movement has an extremely important role to play.  In my opinion, the real purpose of NFP instruction sponsored by the Catholic Church is to evangelize Catholics, other Christians, and anyone who will listen.  Yes, the practice of NFP is safe and healthy; yes, it is very helpful for achieving pregnancy and highly effective for avoiding it; but the greatest benefit to the Catholic Church is that the right kind of NFP course can be an effective vehicle for conveying a very basic lesson in morality—do good and avoid evil.  Do good by being generous in having children, looking upon them as gifts of the Lord, and bringing them up in the ways of the Lord.  Avoid evil by not engaging in the evil of contraceptive behaviors and the use of potentially abortifacient drugs and devices.  Do good by appreciating the fact that the Holy Spirit guides the Church through its magisterium.  Avoid harm to your health by not using potentially harmful methods of birth control.  Avoid harm to your marriage by making sure that your marriage acts reflect the unreserved self-gift you vowed on your wedding day.

Comment sent: Thanks so much for this Lenten teaching which has aided us for years.  As we approach Easter, we are grateful for this time to do this powerful penance, for our own sins and those of the world.
     We were demonstrating at a pro-abortion-candidate’s rally a couple of weeks ago, and a very young woman yelled out to us, “I have had five abortions!”  How the world needs the virtue of chastity, which you promote so well.  May God continue to bless the work of NFPI.   Ann C.

Next Week:  Why NFPI is important.

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning (e-book at www.nfpandmore.org)

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NFP International Needs Your Help

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

Dear Friends of Life and Honest Love,

First of all, please pray for Sheila and me.  We are the “staff” at NFP International.  We are pleased to work as 100% volunteers.  We each put in close to 30 hours a week, and we thank God almost daily for the gift of work, especially work that can be helpful to others in an important area of their lives.  On the other hand, sometimes our patience is challenged to the max.  For example, in the revision of the online manual, we put in a number of charting examples.  We don’t know how to do this with a graphics program, so Sheila makes a handwritten graphic and then scans it into the Word document.  Or tried and tried to scan it.  That led to a two-hour phone conversation with someone in south India who said he would study the problem and call us back, and he did about 24 hours later.  In the meantime we uninstalled and reinstalled the program, and somehow it worked.  Then another program wouldn’t work, and that took another extended phone session with a different company, but now it works.  I have enrolled in an on-line graphics course so we can do the graphics better for the book we hope to publish.  Can an old dog learn new tricks?  I shall try, but I had a hard time understanding the computerese of the instructor before the course even started.  Please pray for us that we get the technical support we need. 

Please pray also that if the Lord wants this effort to grow and keep going He will send us some energetic, faith-filled, knowledgeable young people eager to do this work which includes raising the funds for a small full-time staff and office space. 

Please pray regularly for a rebirth of chastity, for a stop to contraception and abortion, and for a culture of life.  Please pray that the NFP movement will become a tremendous agent of evangelization within the Church and within Western culture. 

Please take a look at Chapter 1 of our newly revised online manual.  If you think it offers a persuasive case for generosity in the service of life, for using only the natural methods when you have sufficiently serious reasons, and for listening to the Church, please tell others.  Look at the whole four-chapter text of just under 100 pages.  If you would like to use it for teaching, let us know. 

We would like to increase our membership.  If you contribute, you are a member! 

Please be generous with your financial support as well as your prayers.  You have heard more than once in the last few weeks that Lent is a time of prayer, penance, and almsgiving.  If you share our belief that teaching marital chastity is a work of the Lord, then please make NFP International the beneficiary of your almsgiving—as much as you can.  We send only three appeals per calendar year.  This is our first appeal in 2008; the next will come in early fall.  So we need sufficient funds to last us for the next six months.  Please help. 

Granted, the work of trying to facilitate a rebirth of chastity is simply overwhelming.  Please don’t be so discouraged that you think it’s a hopeless cause and therefore not worth supporting.  There are signs and rumors that more and more bishops and priests are already doing something practical or are getting ready to do so.  We have the privilege of helping couples via the internet, email and phone.  We even receive an occasional question from someone taking another organization’s course, and we are pleased to help.  We believe that NFP International is an important and worthwhile apostolate.  Please support it. 

If you are hard pressed but can still afford five or ten dollars, please send it along with your prayers.  If you can afford those bread and butter gifts of $25 to $100, please do what you can.  If you can help us with larger gifts of $250, $500, $1,000 or $2,500, may God give you the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a significant contribution toward the support of our efforts both here in the States as well as in Eastern Europe. 

May you have a spiritually enriching last two weeks of Lent, and may God grant the true joy of Easter to you and each member of your family.

Sincerely in the Lord,

John F. Kippley

NFP International is a 501-C-3 not for profit organization.  Gifts are tax deductible.
Please make checks payable to NFP International and send to: NFPI, P.O.Box 11216, Cincinnati, OH 45211.

Next Week:  Why NFP is important?

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