Family Ministry Office at 1310 West Main Street, Lexington, KY 40508-2048 US - Crossoads Article from 8/1/2010

    Natural Family Planning (NFP), the greatest modern advance in the responsible expression of human fertility, is often maligned and misunderstood, not just by the secular culture, but even by many Catholics. “Vatican Roulette” is one pejorative term—I’ll admit, that’s pretty funny—or maybe this one: “What do you call couples who use NFP?” “Parents!”

    The ridicule is fueled by the observation that some practitioners of Natural Family Planning have large families. But why are NFP families sometimes large? Is it because, as the critics claim, that Natural Family Planning doesn’t work, despite numerous studies that reveal a 98% effectiveness rate when used properly, even in a multiplicity of cultures? Or rather, could it be that these couples choose to have more children because of their positive view of fertility?  

     One pernicious error behind contraception and sterilization is a dis-integrated view that separates fertility from the totality of the person. A Catholic vision of personhood, on the contrary, recognizes that we are a profound union of body and soul, and that our bodies—in their totality—are intrinsically connected to our identities.

     Thus, fertility is not a disease to be disengaged, but an inseparable gift within the total self-giving of marital intercourse. To sterilize the sexual act, via contraception, vasectomy or tubal ligation, is to cancel the totality of the bodily gift, as couples are saying, in essence, “There is something I wish to withhold from you—or for you to withhold from me.”

     Furthermore, the withholding doesn’t stop with the marriage; there is also a withholding from God himself. After all, couples are not sovereign creators of human life; any procreative power they possess only exists in cooperation with God as co-creator. To intentionally withhold fertility effectively shuts God out of the marital union.

     In his memorable encyclical on family life, Familiaris Consortio, the Venerable John Paul II writes that when couples contracept, “they act as ‘arbiters’ of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality-and with it themselves and their married partner-by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other.”

    Those who practice Natural Family Planning, on the other hand, “respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as ‘ministers’ of God's plan and they ‘benefit from’ their sexuality according to the original dynamism of ‘total’ self-giving, without manipulation or alteration.”

    Even when periodic abstinence (usually 8-12 days per cycle) is used for serious reasons to avoid or postpone pregnancy, there is a vast difference between the interior approach of NFP and the exterior approach of contraception. To continue the words of John Paul II, “it is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.”

    The NFP approach stands in awe at the mystery of fertility, respects the total self-giving of the marital union, and recognizes the integrated dignity of the human person. As John Paul II affirms, it fosters “dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control.” Even more importantly, NFP is lived with an attitude of trust in God’s goodness and plan for our lives.

    Contraception, on the other hand, can foster a negative, even a fearful, view toward fertility, and as we know from Sacred Scripture, fear is incompatible with authentic love (1 John 4:18). Likewise, contraception does nothing to nurture the interior virtues of mutual respect, shared responsibility and self-control, the very virtues required for a healthy marriage.

     Is there any wonder, then, than couples who practice Natural Family Planning have a practically non-existent divorce rate? Maybe we should start another joke: “What do you call couples who practice NFP?” “Still married.”