Last week, I wrote about the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s controversial but prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae. This week, I would like to reflect on how the Church has responded to the very valid concern that many families have as they strive to be faithful to the Church’s teachings in regard to conception. In the face of the many challenges that children bring to a family, how does the Church recommend married couples engage in responsible family planning? As you will see mentioned several times in various Church documents, the married couple has the right and responsibility to determine the number of children and their spacing, “taking into full consideration their duties towards themselves, their children already born, the family and society, in a just hierarchy of values and in accordance with the objective moral order which excludes recourse to contraception, sterilization and abortion” (Charter of the Rights of the Family, article 3). So, how does a couple, who wants to live in accordance with God’s plan for marriage and family life, take responsibility for the number and spacing of their children? The approach that the Catholic Church approves and promotes is called Natural Family Planning (NFP). This is not just a method, but a way of life based on an attitude of openness to God’s will. And, unlike the rhythm method, which projects future periods of fertility in a woman based on her previous periods, NFP relies on the increase in mucus in the cervical area as well as a rise in her body temperature that occurs prior to ovulation to help a couple determine when to engage in physical sexual relations if they want to have children and avoid physical sexual relations when they do not feel ready to have children.
By recording the interval between times of menstruation in previous months, it was thought that a woman could project when she would be fertile in future months. This method works very well for women who experience regular menstrual cycles. Most women, however, do not experience these cycles with great regularity, and even women who ordinarily are regular find that their cycles are often altered by sickness, stress, or other significant events in their lives. So, for most women, the rhythm method is not a reliable method to use if the couple is interested in either postponing or encouraging pregnancy. Fortunately, beginning in the 1930’s, several reproductive experts began to discover that women could recognize oncoming fertility for the given cycle if they just made some careful observations of physical changes in their body. In 1932, for example, Drs. L. J. Latz and E. Reiner recognized that an increase of mucus in the cervical area preceded ovulation. It was also discovered that a woman’s body temperature rose just prior to ovulation. This became known as the Basal Body Temperature Method. In 1959, Dr. Josef Roetzer combined the Basal Body Temperature Method and the mucus observation method into the SymptoThermal method. It was about this time that the contraceptive pill was also developed. It’s easier to take a pill and the husband doesn’t have to get involved in the process then, so many couples prefer the pill. But, it’s important to understand what the pill does. By introducing estrogen and progesterone, it fools a woman’s reproductive system into thinking that it is already pregnant, thus preventing a real pregnancy to occur. In effect, it short circuits a perfectly healthy body and prevents it from acting as it should.
On the other hand, NFP simply identifies the specific times in each cycle when a woman is fertile, thus allowing the husband and wife to determine whether or not their intimacy should include physical sexual intimacy, dependent on whether or not they believe they can responsibly support another child.
NFP training is available through a variety of agencies. In fact, fertility clinics often employ NFP as a tool to help infertile couples. Of course, the programs offered by the Catholic Church (e.g., Couple to Couple and Creighton) provide a fuller understanding of God’s plan for marriage and family life; couples who become involved in these approaches usually find their intimacy is more meaningful as they learn about the close relationship God has intended for them. Programs are offered online or in person by couples who have been using NFP for many years with great satisfaction.
With an open mind and a generous heart, many of you have welcomed several children into your family. And, I hope you have found that each one of them is a true gift from God, who has invited you to share in his abundant creative love. We are all called to humbly submit to God’s plan for us. This is a great challenge for many today – as it has been from the time of Adam and Eve – but those of us who remain faithful to God’s plan can live in peace, knowing that God will provide for our needs. Like many of the Church’s teachings, Humanae Vitae calls us to live according to God’s will, taking advantage of the natural aspects of our lives to fulfill his call to love as he loves, generously and abundantly!