The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities designates every year a “National Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week” toward the end of July highlighting the anniversary of Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (July 25) and the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne (July 26). This year the dates will be July 20-26, 2008 and its importance will be underlined by the fact that it will coincide with the 40^th anniversary of the promulgation of Humane Vitae in 1968.

The USCCB presents the week the following way: “Natural Family Planning Awareness Week is a national educational campaign. The Natural Family Planning Program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops develops a poster each year with basic supportive materials. It is the individual dioceses however, that offer a variety of educational formats in the local church to focus attention on Natural Family Planning methods and Church teachings which support their use in marriage”.[1]

Pope Paul VI’s re-affirmation of the Church’s constant teaching on the immorality of contraception caused much of a surprise in 1968 and encountered strong resistance of which the Church still hasn’t recovered. Although John Paul II dedicated a great part of his teaching to elaborating and explaining Catholic theology of marriage [2] and it includes also the presentation of the Church’s teaching on contraception, it seems that still it is much to do to make the authentic stance of Catholic vision on this important point clear and understandable, acceptable and livable.

John Paul II states that “the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle ...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”.  [3] The Pope gives philosophical and theological explanation of this “wider and deeper” difference that separates contraception and the natural methods of avoiding pregnancy [4] and this position is clear, beautiful, and shows the great dignity and honor God has bestowed on human sexuality.

The love of the spouses is called to incarnate God’s own love just as this love was made flesh in Jesus Christ. Saint Paul in Eph 5:31-32 calls for this reason Christian marriage “a great mystery” that in some way foreshadows the union of Christ and the Church. This incarnate love involves the bodies of the spouses and particularly their sexual union through which they become “one flesh” (cf. Gn 2:24)[5].  In order to become a true sacramental sign of God’s love, the incarnate love of the spouses should reflect of the characteristics of the mystery of this love, it should be an image of God’s own free, total, faithful and creative love.

Still, it seems that this although this argument is clear it is still hard to explain this difference to people of all walks of life in everyday language. I think this should be mostly the task of laity, of married people in the Church who could present the Catholic perspective not just correctly from the theological point of view but from lived experience and with existential argumentation. The most compelling analogy that I came across to make the distinction between contraception and natural family planning understandable is the analogy with the dying and euthanasia. There is a clear difference between accompanying a terminally ill person (even praying for his/her dying) and actively ending the person’s life, that is killing. Similarly, instead of waiting for the infertile days each cycle that providence gave us we render ourselves sterile [6].

The common denominator in these cases, it seems to me is the lack of trust in God and in consequence trying to resolve what we see problematic by our own means, by technology instead of depending on the divine providence. This is the sort of the root attitude that stands at the origin of and can lead to various forms of sin.

Of course there is the very realistic and practical difference that while using the pill is relatively simple, one just need not to forget it, learning and practicing natural family planning is an arduous and demanding process, requiring not only knowledge, but discipline in following the method. I see the difficulty that when it come to it, one needs to read and understand a large volume on the sympto-thermal method or participate in courses, learn to make charts, read thermometers, get and interpret the signs of fertility and so on.

While earlier contraceptive methods, condoms, spirals, foams and similar are inconvenient and messy, using the pill or recurring to sterilization through operations makes so that the couple does not experience directly the difference between the artificially sterilized and the potentially fertile sexual act. Because the change in the act itself is imperceptible physically it might be hard to understand the moral and anthropological difference. It is necessary to find a way to make the difference plausible instead of stating the argument that “this is the teaching of the Church that needs to be followed”.

Not just that, but the spouses need to cooperate with dedication, beginning with the initial discernment if they desire to have children or need to avoid pregnancy in that period of their life – which in itself requires from them serious self-knowledge and responsibility and discerning process – all the way to the common effort to abstain in the fertile times [7]. This all truly requires strong commitment and love on the part of both spouses. On the other hand this life-long common project is in reality an expression of sincere mutual love, honor and respect toward each other throughout their fertile years.

To acquire the resources to practice natural family planning and keep up with the method surely is a major obstacle for many throughout the world, I think of especially the poor, who might not have enough education to understand the methods or means to buy even a thermometer and know how to operate it. Surely these populations will be more vulnerable to be even eliminated in just in a few generations by extensive use of contraception that might be provided for them for “charity” purposes. On the other side, modern western society is becoming extremely old and is in danger of extinction for irresponsible use of contraception and lack of children.

There are real difficulties in making natural family planning available and practical not only for Catholics but for all and it needs to be done. Even those who don’t share our ethical concerns might understand the issue of health concerns, involved in using the pill, all the potentially dangerous side-effects that come with the prolonged administration of hormones and so on. There are also works on purely secular level that present natural family planning available for those who are concerned for the health side of these methods [8]. These concerns about the health effects should be of great concern notwithstanding the advertisements of the pharmaceuticals that claim new and less dangerous products (and rake in significant profits from them through the doctors who readily prescribe them). In fact, we don’t have real long-term studies about the full range of the effect of these products on women, that maybe they are beginning just now to show up since the introduction of the pill in the sixties.

For Catholics the best resources, teaching projects, teachers by area and practical help are available through the Couple to Couple League dedicated to provide information on the sympto-thermal method of Natural Family Planning and benefits of what they call the “NFP lifestyle” [9].