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Catholic Natural Family Planning Perspectives
a Catholic Mom Column by Sara Fox Peterson

Archived Catholic Natural Family Planning Columns from Sara Fox Peterson:

What's In a Name?
The Pill as Panacea
Too Much Affection?
Surprises Happen
Husbands and Daughters
The Pill: Questions and Answers
Heroic Virtue
Not on the Same Page (Part II)
Not on the Same Page (Part I)
The People Who Actually Do This
Sweetness and Light
Freeing Our Consciences
What if It's Too Late?
What's the Difference
Medical Exceptions
Waiting
Fear Not - Five Resolutions for a New Year
An Open Question
Catholic Contraception?
Contraception, Lies and the Truth
Natural Family Planning - Why Not?

Sara can be contacted by email at sarafoxpeterson@gmail.com - please indicate "NFP" in the subject line of your email.

What is NFP?

Every fertile woman experiences recurring signs of her fertility. Natural Family Planning (NFP) teaches a woman to recognize and record these signs so that spouses can identify the days in each cycle when conception can occur and plan the timing of their marital relations according to their desire either to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Looking for more information on Natural Family Planning?  Visit our Natural Family Planning Resource Center.

Natural Family Planning Method Comparison - a comprehensive comparison of natural family planning methods 

For additional "cyber-support" you are also most welcome to join in the discussions in the Catholic Mom Community's NFP Forum

Thy Will Be Done

If you type the phrase “licit use of NFP” into an internet search engine you will find a fascinating range of thinking on the matter - from Richard Ibranyi who claims that any use of NFP is a mortal sin to Thomas Storck who maintains that idea that we must have serious reasons for postponing or avoiding pregnancy is based on a mistranslation of Humanae Vitae.1

If you listen to and read what faithful Catholic speakers and authors have to say on the subject and you will find almost as wide a range. Some claim that NFP is morally acceptable only in truly life-or-death situations. Others maintain that Catholics have a duty to meticulously plan each and every child in order to witness to the effectiveness of NFP.

And if you talk with other Catholic moms you will discover that nearly every possible variation on the number and spacing of one’s children is seen as fair game by certain parish parking lot commentators. Mothers of many, closely spaced children are accused of being irresponsible or over-sexed and some report finding advertisements for NFP left on their windshields after mass. Mothers of few or widely spaced children endure pointed comments about the importance of being ‘open’ and ‘generous’ in family planning (this is particularly painful when the number or spacing of one’s children is due more to infertility or recurrent miscarriage than to any sort of intentional planning). Mothers with medium sized families and 2 or 3 years between each child receive congratulations (both genuine and sarcastic) on their ‘perfectly planned’ families.

I imagine that almost everyone reading this column is familiar (if only because I have quoted it here so many times) with Pope Paul VI’s authoritative teaching on the licit use of NFP:

“With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.” (Humanae Vitae 10)

We can debate until we are blue in the face what, precisely, is meant by a “serious reason” to postpone or avoid pregnancy – and the majority of discussion about the licit use of NFP does just that - but I think this largely misses the point.

Also in Humanae Vitae, only a few lines after the statement above, Pope Paul VI writes (emphasis added):

“. . . [Husband and wife] are not free to act as they choose in the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide what is the right course to follow. On the contrary, they are bound to ensure that what they do corresponds to the will of God the Creator.” (Humanae Vitae 10)

So really the only question we ever need to ask is, “What is God’s will for our family right now?” This simplifies things a great deal because God is not out to confuse or mislead us. He wants us to know what He wants us to do and when we sincerely seek His will we can be quite certain He will make it clear to us.

On the other hand if we are not sincerely seeking God’s will, no amount of semantic clarity on exactly what kind of situations let us off the procreative hook is going to make any difference. If we are seeking our own will rather than His we will simply rationalize whatever it is we want. And, of course, we must always remember that we can judge only our own hearts and lives and never those of another.

As I write this I cannot help thinking of the Holy Family. Mary’s openness to life – her fiat – was irresponsible by just about every earthly standard. She was very young, poor, unmarried, the child would not be conceived with her intended husband and she would face dangerous public censure (adultery was punishable by stoning) if he were to reject her and the child. The Annunciation was also the one and only time God called Mary to accept the gift of a child. It was His will for her to remain forever a virgin despite her holy marriage to St. Joseph and an absence earthly reasons (as far as we know) not to bear other children. And yet we know with certainty that Our Lady’s actions were always in perfect accord with the will of God.

May her intercession allow us to imitate her obedience!

1. Both of these understandings miss the mark. Ibranyi’s is based on an interpretation of Pope Pius XI’s Casti Connubii that Pius XI later made clear that he did not intend. Storck’s assertion that the translation of the Latin seriis causis in Humanae Vitae as “serious reasons” is incorrect is weak in light of the fact that the Vatican continues to promulgate this very translation.

For additional "cyber-support" you are also most welcome to join in the discussions in the Catholic Mom Community's NFP Forum

Looking for more information on Natural Family Planning?  Visit our Natural Family Planning Resource Center.

Sara Fox Peterson is a full time momma, a sometimes writer and a certified teacher of the Billings Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning. She holds a BS in biology and an MS in human physiology, both from Georgetown University, and lives in Maryland with her husband and children.

1/02/07

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