Guest Column: Natural Family Planning Week

Each year the Natural Family Planning Program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) schedule a week for an educational campaign for Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness. This year the week will be Sunday, July 21 to Saturday, July 27 and the theme is Love Beyond Measure: Natural Family Planning supporting God's gifts of love and life in marriage. These dates correspond to the feast day of Sts. Anne and Joachim (Friday, July 26), the parents of our Blessed Mother. They also correspond to the anniversary of St. Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (Thursday, July 25) in which the brave pope reaffirmed Church teaching about human sexuality, conjugal love and responsible parenthood, when many of his advisors and theologians urged him to succumb to worldly pressures and to allow the use of contraception. This prophetic encyclical warned of the dangers of allowing the contraceptive mentality to become the norm and served as the foundation for NFP. We have seen all the prophecies in St. Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae come true in the past 50 years. He prophesied that there would be “[m]arital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards,” that “[men] may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires,” and finally he warned of  “[t]he danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law….” He argued that if they see contraception “as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. The last 50 years speak for themselves…
 
NFP works against the contraceptive mentality and within the natural order God has established. Divorce rates for couples that practice NFP are much lower. This is because NFP opens a line of communication not otherwise used by couples, and the woman is not impacted by the negative effects of hormonal contraception. Couples practicing NFP may also be more receptive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in their marriage, and they are more likely to recognize God as the creator of all life. Couples that use NFP not only find that it improves their communication, but also adds courtship elements to their life and they find other ways to express their love for each other. Real love wants the best for the other person. For couples to be able to enjoy the riches of the method, an NFP class is required for all couples wishing to be married in the Diocese of Amarillo.  
 
For further information, please go online to [email protected]. The Diocesan Family Life office facilitates NFP classes to educate all engaged and married couples about God’s plan for responsible parenthood. Those seeking additional details on NFP Classes in English or Spanish are encouraged to visit the diocesan website, amarillodiocese.org/nfp or call 806-414-1059.  
 
Adrian Johnson is director of the Family Life Office for the Diocese of Amarillo.