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NFP: A Defense and an Explanation
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What are the conditions according to which one may use NFP without offending Almighty God?
As everyone knows, after the Second Vatican Council it was widely expected that, despite the authoritative teachings of Pius XI and Pius XII, somehow the Church would and could change her teachings on contraception.9 But Pope Paul VI, in an action that was little short of heroic, issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae on July 25, 1968. Although, as we will see, Humanae Vitae continues the same approach to natural family planning use as found in the teaching of Pius XII, we are met with an initial difficulty, based however on an error. In the pamphlet edition of Humanae Vitae published by the Daughters of St. Paul, which features the “NC News Service Translation,” the section that deals with the licit use of NFP, section 16 of the encyclical, reads (in part) as follows:
If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions….”
This text would seem to teach that any licit use of natural family planning is confined to situations in which “serious motives” are present, so that the same conditions apply to use of NFP simply to space out births as to its use “for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life,” as Pius XII had earlier taught.** But this is not the case. For in this instance it is simply a case of a faulty translation. The Latin of the beginning of the above quotation runs, “Si igitur iustae adsint causae generationes subsequentes intervallandi, quae a coniugum corporis vel animi condicionibus…” (my emphasis).** The word erroneously translated as serious is the Latin world iustae. Paul VI thus speaks of
just causes or just reasons, and there is no mention of serious at all. Fortunately more accurate translations followed, so that in the volume of post-Vatican II documents edited by Austin Flannery, iustae is translated as “reasonable.”10 But for reasons unknown to me, “serious motives” has acquired a life of its own and one sees it repeated again and again. Paul VI did not specify exactly what he meant by “just reasons,” and we will look at that more closely below.
But here we should simply note that any use of Humanae Vitae to try to show that serious reasons are required for the licit use of NFP is simply based on an error.
Finally, let us look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In no. 2368 we find again the word “just” used by Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, and we read, **“For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children.”**12 This sums up what we have seen above in the teaching of Pius XI, Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul II and may be taken as indicating the Church’s judgment on this matter.
From these documents of the Magisterium we can see that the Church does not look on natural family
planning with a jaundiced eye. To be sure excusing reasons are necessary for its use. But Pius XII mentions th**e “very wide” limits for its licit use, John Paul II speaks of its value in the development of marital love. **We have also seen that except for its use over the entire lifetime of a marriage or for “a long period” the Magisterium has never required serious or grave reasons for its use. Let us look at the issue more generally and examine the question of what might be just reasons for its use. We should keep in mind what seems to be the basic line of papal thought, namely, that the longer the use, generally speaking, the more serious the reason that will be required. Thus for example, it would seem that for a couple with only one or two children to voluntarily cease having children would indeed require some serious and extraordinary cause. Or to space children six years apart would require a more serious reason than three years. And so on.
