Natural Family Planning was a hot topic today on Relevent Radio’s The Inner Life, a call-in program providing spiritual direction. I am addressing it here because there were at least two people who called in “burdened by the Catholic Church’s teaching on NFP.” I didn’t hear the entire program as the children and I were going to Mass, but what I did hear did cause some concern in my mind. I would go so far as to say, these women are not burdened by the Church’s teaching but by what they THINK is the Church’s teaching.
One of the ladies is a mother of 9 children married 17 years who is frustrated with what she cannot give her children. She is frustrated by the poverty in which her family lives and faced with the reality that she and her husband probably won’t be able to send their kids to parochial school next year. The other woman is a mother of 5 who is overwhelmed and doesn’t feel she can give her children an adequate spiritual education she would like. Both blame the Church’s teaching on the use of Natural Family Planning and I would go a step further to say they really have a beef on it’s teaching on the openness to life.
I felt sad for both of them. Not for the situation they are in, as God has called them to have the children they have. But I am sad for their misunderstanding of the Church’s teaching and the lack of support they have in their community.
Every month for the past five years Adam and I have been teaching a Natural Family Planning Basic Information Session to couples engaged to be married in the Catholic Church. I give an overview of NFP methods and the medical science behind them. Adam gives an overview of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. Adam likes to joke with the couples and say, “The Catholic Church does not have an investment in 15 passenger vans!” Ultimately the Church calls married couples to RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD. What does this mean? From Paul VI’s encyclical Humane Vitae:
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. [emphasis mine]
The Church teaches that every act of the marital embrace should be open to life. Does every act need to end in the conception of a child? No. If there are serious reasons, a married couple can decide not to have children for a period of time. Those “serious reason” will vary from one couple to another. If a couple has a serious reason not to have another child, that’s where NFP comes in. A couple can use natural methods that do not change the function of the woman or the man, or interfere with conception, to postpone pregnancy. A woman is not fertile all of the time and modern methods of NFP teach the married couple to identify biological markers associated with their fertility.
Is NFP a blessing or a burden? I would say a blessing. Why? Because married couples have the opportunity to ask each month, “Is there a serious reason why we should not have another child at this time?” And they have the opportunity to discuss it honestly and act accordingly. And I know there are people who think there’s really not a good enough reason to say no to the question ever. And it’s easy to say that when your family can live on one income and you can still afford to hire a nanny, every one’s in great health and you can put your kids in all kinds of private extracurricular activities, you have family in town that can help with the kids, and you have a supportive environment. The women I mentioned above are obviously not in that boat. And unfortunately their children will witness their resentment.
On a personal note, Adam and I have used the method to postpone pregnancy at times when God had other plans. The most recent example, last year when we found out my sister had cancer, we put growing our family on hold. She told me after all her chemo she would need a bone marrow transplant. With modern medicine, the doctors said they could harvest her stem cells and transplant them back into her. However there was a small chance that if her stem cells were not “clean” enough, she would need a bone marrow donor. If that was the case, as her sister I would be the best match and in order to be a donor I could not be pregnant. So we felt called with all those “ifs” that we would wait until after her transplant to discuss have more children. We have no regrets and believe that God was calling us to wait.
The Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood is not always easy. Using NFP is not always easy. They require sacrifice and Christ-like love. They also require us to look deeper into our souls at what the meaning of happiness is. The world would certainly want us to believe happiness lies in the stuff you can acquire instead of the love you can create and give. They also require us to take to prayer our concerns and take to the Sacrament of Reconciliation our faults so as to discern what God’s holy will is for our lives. And when we do His holy will, we can trust that He will give us our daily bread.
