NFP celebrates God’s vision of human sexuality

Upcoming Natural Family Planning Week explores God’s gifts of love and life in marriage. (Photo by Kelly McClintock/Unsplash)

HOUSTON — From July 20 to 26, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops promotes Natural Family Planning Awareness Week as a time to reflect on various methods that help married couples naturally achieve or avoid pregnancy and live healthy, happy and holy marriages. 

Set in July each year, the week highlights the anniversary of St. Paul VI’s papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae, published on July 25, 1968, which addressed the Church’s teachings on matters of married life and responsible parenthood.  

Also, the week includes the feast day of Sts. Joachim and Anne on July 26, who were parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus’ grandparents — a feast day which Pope Francis declared as World Grandparents Day in the Catholic Church since they were the grandparents of Jesus.  

With an emphasis on the family, information and questions regarding natural family planning are supported by the Archdiocesan Family Life Ministry, which provides local resources for Catholics to learn more about the teaching. The ministry serves individuals interested in practicing the method and guides engaged and married couples in facilitating their discussion of the practicalities and advantages of natural family planning.  

When a couple would like to get married in the Catholic Church, they participate in a marriage preparation process, with an introductory class on natural family planning as part of that process and as an invitation to learn more about the methods. The courses are taught by locally certified instructors, who help answer any questions a couple may have. 

“Natural family planning is every week at the Family Life Ministry because we want it to be part of the couple’s lives since there are positive aspects everywhere,” Ricardo Medina, director of the Family Life Ministry, said. “Sometimes couples don’t want to learn about it because of their own health issues, but it helps couples with intimate dialogues and to have a more grounded balance of our sexual nature that is part of our lives, and what our Lord invites us to properly do with it.” 

Couples can register for the classes that are offered throughout the year in English and Spanish and learn about the several natural family planning methods, including: Sympto-Thermal Method, Billings Ovulation Method, Creighton Model FertilityCare System and Marquette Model. 

Rachel Interiano, a registered nurse and Marquette Model instructor, said natural family planning was the last part of her return to Catholicism, thinking the practice seemed archaic and having adopted an agnostic, pro-choice and contraceptive mentality throughout her life. 
“It is my belief that a lot of Catholics do not pay attention to natural family planning or just automatically think it is not effective or too difficult,” Interiano said. “Many Catholics believe that natural family planning is simply the ‘rhythm method’ or a ‘calendar method.’ They do not realize that there are several methods that fit different personalities and lifestyles.”  

The Marquette Model, developed at Marquette University, offers 98 to 99.4% efficacy at avoiding pregnancy and almost 100% efficacy in achieving pregnancy with women who have no underlying medical complications, said Interiano. 

“I focus a lot on women’s health as well as the spiritual component. What I find is that both husband and wife need to be educated about the method they choose and on board with practicing natural family planning in general,” Interiano said. “Natural family planning is a mentality and a lifestyle, not just a way to avoid or achieve pregnancy. Both parties in a marriage need to be on board and working together as a team.” 

Mary Caprio, who is a Creighton Model instructor, registered nurse and adjunct faculty at the University of St. Thomas, said the Church teaching natural family planning is an important dimension to discuss, noting several realities that God joined together and man must never separate, which are related to the foundational theology of the method.  

“God brought together our body and our souls from the very first instant of our lives. This is why our teaching on life is so consistent and clear: We don’t accept abortion, euthanasia or capital punishment as acceptable. God decides,” Caprio said. 

“He also brought together man and woman from the very beginning in marriage,” she said. “God hates divorce. He has said ‘I do’ to the couple’s ‘I do,’ and He seals their ‘I do’ with His own. This makes marriage indissoluble.” 

“He has also brought together the meaning of the sexual embrace from the very beginning in his command to Adam and Eve to become one flesh and to order that union to the gift of life: Be fruitful and multiply,” Caprio said. “So sex has a meaning, and it is both unitive and procreative. To separate those meanings through contraception of any kind is to remove God from the equation: the Lord and Giver of life.” 

Natural family planning consists of two components, including the deposit of faith and human development, and together, those aspects offer a profound dialogue on the teaching, she said.

Bayard Linbeck, a Creighton Model instructor and parishioner at the Ordinariate Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham, said natural family planning is simply not using contraception. 

“Natural Family Planning is choosing a particular method, receiving good instruction, then closely following the instructions,” Linbeck said. 

Linbeck also said that natural family planning  is not “Catholic contraception,” but that it is meant to help understand a woman’s body and a couple’s fertility through natural means  and to discern God’s will in prayer.  

“It is life-changing,” she said. “It teaches the sanctity of marriage and helps the couple to understand chastity and the woman’s body and health.” Linbeck said that she enjoys teaching natural family planning and lets God do the rest of the work with people’s responses.  

To learn more about natural family planning, visit www.archgh.org/natural-family-planning.