Natural Family Planning International

In a press release kit called the “EXTREME MAKEOVER” issued December 12, 2007, the Couple to Couple League (CCL) announced its “extreme” changes in its NFP teaching program.  Normally I would not use the term “extreme” in or out of quotes to describe CCL’s changes, but that’s the term that CCL management has chosen.  As co-founders of the program that is being changed, my wife, Sheila, and I have a number of concerns.  We certainly do not approve of its extremely different approach to morality.  Here’s what we wrote about some specific behaviors in the Fourth Edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning:
     “Some couples may be tempted to try to beat the system by using condoms or other barrier methods of contraception during the fertile time.  As you will discover more fully in Chapters 18 and 19, such activities are immoral.  Other couples may be tempted to engage in masturbation, whether mutual or solitary, or in marital sodomy.  (Anatomically, marital sodomy is the same form of anal and oral activity engaged in by those who do homosexual sodomy.)  Such activities are really forms of contraceptive behavior and are likewise condemned by the Christian Tradition as seriously immoral.  When you are using NFP to avoid pregnancy, you are called to chaste abstinence during the fertile time.  A combination of fertility awareness and sexual immorality during the fertile time is not natural family planning “ (pp. 247-248).
      Here’s the makeover’s version in CCL’s new book, The Art of Natural Family Planning: Student Guide:
“Who would want to violate his own body?  Sometimes we do this without realizing it.  For example, contraception—the use of mechanical, chemical or medical procedures to prevent conception from taking place as a result of sexual intercourse—involves the alteration of a healthy, major functioning part of the body.  Therefore, it is a use of oneself and is unworthy of our dignity and value.  Similarly, since pornography, lust and masturbation involve the use of oneself (and sometimes another), they also violate the dignity of the entire person” (p. 143, emphasis in original).
     Notice that there is no mention of withdrawal, one of the most widely practiced contraceptive behaviors.  In the 4th edition, we discussed it in Chapters 1 and 18.  Will CCL’s Student Guide talk get through to people who are tempted to that sort of sin?  Will the makeover’s muted talk about morality get through to people who have been engaged in various sinful behaviors for years?  It’s not impossible, but it’s very iffy. 
     On the other hand, I know for certain that our brief but direct mention of these sins has gotten through to people.  A woman trained by another NFP program told me by phone that for eight years she and her husband practiced “NFP”—with mutual masturbation during the fertile time.  They stopped the immoral practice when she read a few crucial lines in our book.  Two current CCL teaching couples have told me that they were practicing their own form of “NFP” with immoral behaviors during the fertile time.  Then they read our few sentences above.  They were people of general good will who had rationalized their way into such behaviors.  After all, how many of us have done the same thing in one way or another.  You know how it goes.  “Well, none of the authorities have told us it’s wrong so it must be okay.”  The couples above changed their behavior.  The latter two not only repented but became CCL teachers so that they could help others avoid falling into the same trap. 
     Some of CCL’s teachers defend this and call it a softer approach.  I call it the muting of morality.  Whatever it is, the change in moral teaching is another extreme departure from the traditional program that served the Church well for some 36 years in CCL, and the traditional direct approach still serves well in NFP International. 

NEXT WEEK:  NFP and the Magisterium

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, available at
www.NFPandmore.org

In CCL’S EXTREME MAKEOVER promotion of its new NFP teaching program, there is a studied effort to make the new program look better than the old.  The December promotion was so derogatory to the traditional program that CCL issued a message in January to its in-house cadre advising them to be prudent in comparing the two programs.  “Since the old program served us faithfully and well for more than 30 years,” CCL teachers should be “thoughtful” when they discuss “the relative merits of the old course versus the new.” 
     Comparisons are frequently odious, and whenever someone calls his product the “best” or even “better” than other programs, a thoughtful person wants to know the basis for comparison.  That’s why I tried to avoid ever calling CCL the better or the best program when I was its president or executive director.  I believed that such verbiage would be recognized as propaganda by any thinking person, and that any investigation of such claims would quickly lead to highly subjective claims or interpretations about what is good, better and best in the field of NFP instruction and practice.
     On the other hand, toward the end of my time with CCL, I began to hear talk about making CCL the best in every way—the best program, the best-trained teachers, the best materials, etc.  Someone once said that “best” is the enemy of the good.  You can spend so much time trying to be perfect that you lose sight of the goal and don’t get the job done.  That perspective influenced me when I was with CCL.  To be sure, we tried to get better all the time, but our goal was not mythical perfection or some arbitrary claim of being “the best.”  Our goal was a high level of adequacy, doing well the job that needed to be done, and I think we succeeded at that goal.  
     My contention during those years was that CCL had the most complete program.  Such a claim is readily verifiable.  Such a statement of itself makes no claim that the program is better or best, and it is obvious that those who teach in other programs might agree with the completeness claim but still not think it was any more appropriate for those they seek to serve.  It is on that basis that Sheila and I have been criticizing the new CCL program.  There should be no debate on the facts of the matter.  The value of excluding certain key elements remains a subject of debate on which we have very definite convictions. 
     Here I want only to quickly state three basic factual points and then move on to a new point next week.
1.  Ecological breastfeeding has been dropped from the extreme makeover program. 
2.  The simple-to-grasp covenant theology of human sexuality has been dropped.
3.  The concept of having different rules for different situations has been dropped.  The makeover program says it has only one rule, but that rule recognizes three different situations, so it actually becomes three rules. 

Therefore it is clear that the EXTREME MAKEOVER has yielded a program that is less complete than the traditional program that served well for 36 years.  The League still uses the term “The Triple Strand approach,” but the content has been reduced and “extremely” changed as CCL has been pleased to tell the world.  Whether such changes have made the CCL program good or better or worse or best is a legitimate matter for discussion and debate.  

 A TRADITIONAL LENTEN REMINDER.  The reading from Joel on Ash Wednesday has a line in it about the bridegroom departing from the bridal chamber.  That has traditionally been seen as a call to abstinence from the marriage act during Lent.  If you accept that challenge, please be sure to offer this sacrifice as a living prayer for a rebirth of chastity as well as penance for past sins of whatever nature.   

 NEXT WEEK:  The Muting of Morality

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, online at www.nfpandmore.org

In the EXTREME MAKEOVER kit sent in December to the media and the CCL cadre, there was a comparison between the traditional course and the new course.  Needless to say, it made the new course look much better and the old course look bad by comparison.    In January, however, CCL sent a message with a different tone to its cadre.  “Since the old program served us faithfully and well for more than 30 years,” CCL teachers should be “thoughtful” when they discuss “the relative merits of the old course versus the new.”  In last week’s blog and in this one, I offer my efforts to be thoughtful about the relative merits, or at least the relative content of each.  I will use “Kippley-Prem” to designate what we founded and “The New CCL” to designate the program developed under the new CCL management.  Last week’s blog focused on the content of the Triple Strand that Sheila and I brought to the League.  This week’s blog is on other matters.

Theology of the Body
Kippley-Prem.  Has taught a version of a theology of the body in the covenant theology of sexuality since 1971, eight years before Pope John Paul II began his lectures that constitute the papal “Theology of the Body.”  The covenant theology was a forerunner of the papal TOB and completely compatible with it although nowhere as comprehensive.  As mentioned last week, John Paul II incorporated the key concept of the covenant theology into his 1994 work, Letter to Families. 
The New CCL.  Claims to teach the “Theology of the Body” of Pope John Paul II, but the reality is that the papal TOB is so huge and so difficult to understand that most people get to know it only through an interpreter, not the original.  I never know what somebody is talking about when he says he teaches the TOB, so I have to ask.     
     In early 2003 when Linda Kracht asked me to put more of the TOB into the next edition of The Art of Natural Family Planning, I was uncertain what I should write so I wrote three different authors asking for a definition or description of the papal TOB in 50 words or less.  I received responses from all three.  They were all different.  They were all correct.  Here are two of the three; I cannot find the third.
     “JP II’s Theology of the Body is an attempt to recover the eternal dignity of the human person–body and soul–as one made for communion with ‘the other’.”
     “The Theology of the Body addresses (129) of Pope John Paul II are a study of the human person in his/her body/soul unity.  The study is carried out by a phenomenological analysis of the original bodily experiences of humanity as seen in light of Christ’s teachings and then the conclusions are applied to virginity and celibacy, marriage, and the teaching against contraception.  The Theology of he Body addresses are part of the larger project of Pope John Paul II to give us a new presentation of the entire body of Revelation by viewing the content of Revelation through the ‘lens’ of phenomenology.”
     The latter came from Fr. Hogan.  I am not disputing it or criticizing it in any way, but what I got out of it is that this is tough stuff to communicate. 

User costs
Kippley-Prem.  Currently $65, $70, or $75, depending on where the NFPI classes are taken.  Our class includes Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book; Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood; Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition; and Marriage Is for Keeps; a digital thermometer, charts, and free counseling as needed by phone, in person, fax, and email.  No newsletter yet, but students are encouraged to explore the highly informative NFP International website.  Couples who learn on their own can download the online manual for free.  They will need to purchase their own thermometer and whatever books they want.
The New CCL.  Currently $135.  Includes The Art of Natural Family Planning: Student Guide, chart book, digital thermometer, Virtual Library CD with instructional brochures, a 1-Year CCL membership which includes a subscription to Family Foundations magazine and a free course refresher as needed.                              

International
Kippley-Prem.  Sheila and I have always felt privileged to help people in other countries take advantage of what we had done in English.  When good people in European countries wanted to translate the CCL materials, all we required was someone who was bilingual for communication purposes, and we let them run with it.  We never thought that these operations would contribute financially to CCL’s headquarters operation; our hope was that some day they would be financially self-sufficient.  We were happy to fund positions in four countries as part of international development.  To this day we continue to work with these people, and we still fund the full-time position in Slovakia.  In fact, that’s our major expense.  
The New CCL.  In August, 2004, the new management of CCL decided not to support international operations that were not in English or Spanish.  That decision was a big factor that prompted us to found NFP International with the hope of continuing to support the European efforts. 

Other comparisons
The Extreme Makeover kit included a “Course Comparison” that provided 10 to 12 points of comparison between the Traditional Course and the New Course.  It is not worth the time and space to detail them.    In NFP International, we have a wide variety of materials available at our website.  We are striving to make it the “go to” website for learning NFP and related information.  Our teaching program is flexible and can be done either in PowerPoint or directly from the manual.  We do not yet have a formal teacher training program, but we are exploring various options.  Individuals can download individual NFP charts from our home page, and we will soon have a chart booklet. 

150th Anniversary of Lourdes:  For the historical significance of this event, read my article on “The Exquisite Timing of Lourdes: Confronting the Skeptics.”

NEXT WEEK:  Unprovable best or most complete?

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)
Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book
www.NFPandmore.org