Natural Family Planning, what is it? What are the rules?

  • Thread starter Thread starter YehoiakhinEx232
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Y

YehoiakhinEx232

Guest
What is Natural Family Planning? Is it the Rhythmic method, or is something more complex than that? When does overusing the Natural Family Planning method become sinful?
 
Last edited:
YehoiakhinEx232 said:
What is Natural Family Planning?
Click to expand...
A method of observing a woman’s cycle of fertility, and the signs of that fertility, for the purpose of making decisions regarding your family. This information can be used to help achieve pregnancies as well as the space children.
YehoiakhinEx232 said:
Is it the Rhythmic method, or is something more complex than that?
Click to expand...
The so-called “calendar rhythm method“ is a method of natural family planning that relies on historical averages for cycles. Modern methods that use a Calendar method include the cycle beads method and the standard days method. These do not observe fertility signs, but instead relying on past information or aggregate averages. These would not be considered the scientific method of natural family planning.

The scientific methods include the Synoto-thermal method, Billings method, Creighton method, and Marquette method. All of these have in common the monitoring of one or more of the woman’s signs such as basal body temperature, cervical position, mucus, or hormones. These methods rely on observation of actual signs of fertility each day.
YehoiakhinEx232 said:
When does overusing the Natural Family Planning method become sinful?
Click to expand...
NFP is information only. A couple decides whether or not to have marital relations at any given time based on that information. Making exclusive use of the infertile time of the woman cycle should be done for a just cause. I suggest you read the encyclical Humanae Vitae For an in-depth discussion of that. The church talks about responsible parent hood and the discernment of the couple. The church gives no list, the church does not say a reason must be X, Y, or Z.
 
Last edited:
With regard to your last question, the primary duty of married couples is to procreate and educate children. However, they are also called to do so responsibly. The CCC sums it up:
2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154 "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155

2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:

When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156
Click to expand...
The encyclical Humanae Vitae also described responsible parenthood:
With regard to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means an awareness of, and respect for, their proper functions. In the procreative faculty the human mind discerns biological laws that apply to the human person. (9)

With regard to man’s innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man’s reason and will must exert control over them.

With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.

Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter. In a word, the exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society.
Click to expand...
To sum it up, married couples have a duty to reproduce, but how many children to have will vary from person to person based on their physical, economic, psychological and social circumstances. On the other hand, neglecting this duty for selfish reasons would be a sin.
 
A priest told me it should only be used in dire circumstances, i.e mothers life at risk.
 
I don’t think this is what the Church teaches. Pope Pius XII, for example, said:
Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P511029.HTM
Click to expand...
See also my post above quoting Pope Paul VI (Humanae Vitae).
 
The context was when NFP is acceptable. This is a moot point for couples that can’t conceive. Obviously a duty is excused when it is physically or morally impossible. Also, while that is the primary end of marriage, it has other salutory ends as well. This is why the Church does not forbid those to marry who cannot conceive.

Also, the nature of marriage as established by God–with all its rights and responsibilities–exists whether a Protestant church acknowledges it or not.
 
Last edited:
NFP seems to be “technical” way to get around the prohibition of contraception.
 
My wife struggled with this same statement about the “technical” contraception. However, it is far more than that. By practicing NFP, your love can still be free, total, faithful and fruitful (open to life). You do nothing to block or interrupt the natural bodily functions that you are proclaiming to “love”. With contraception, you block those functions and your love is no longer total, or fruitful.

So, NFP is much more than “technical” contraception. You have to discern and pray about when to use it to avoid, and when to use it to achieve pregnancy.
 
Last edited:
cstheriot said:
open to life
Click to expand...
Thing is, the Church uses the term “ordered toward procreation” in the official teachings.

“Open to life” came into the popular parlance, but, is imprecise and can be misleading.
 
How so? Acceptable ends can be accomplished with good or bad means, but we are only morally justified to use the good means. This is a consistent principle across Catholic moral law.
 
The goal remains the same, to have sexual intercourse but avoid pregnancy. What were people to do for thousands of years before NFP was discovered? Seems modern people want their cake and eat it too.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Thing is, the Church uses the term “ordered toward procreation” in the official teachings.

“Open to life” came into the popular parlance, but, is imprecise and can be misleading.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? Can you explain the difference? I am open to learning. 🙂
I am not sure how it is misleading to day that the sexual act should be open to life.
 
KevinK said:
The goal remains the same, to have sexual intercourse but avoid pregnancy. What were people to do for thousands of years before NFP was discovered? Seems modern people want their cake and eat it too.
Click to expand...
Not sure I follow this statement. lol NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy as well. Its not “breaking” or “blocking” our body from functioning as designed.
 
“Open to life” is a subjective term, it talks more of attitude or emotional decisions. It can be applied in many ways. One could argue that limiting relations to infertile times only means a couple is not “open to life”.

Ordered toward procreation is clear. The couple does nothing disoredred, the act happens in the same manner regardless of fertility, you do it the same way you would if your intention is to procreate.
 
Words do have meanings. Our society has blurred so many words that it seems the norm. When we use the terms that the Church gives us, it helps us to better evangelize.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Words do have meanings. Our society has blurred so many words that it seems the norm. When we use the terms that the Church gives us, it helps us to better evangelize.
Click to expand...
I agree. But if we focus on the “meanings” for the words, we miss the person entirely. When I talk about love being “fruitful”, I usually explain with being “open to life”. Why? Because it explains better to me what we are talking about. If I were to say “Ordered toward procreation” (which is not wrong) the question arises “So, can I not perform the marital act during infertile time? That’s not ordered toward procreation.” Now, that is not my argument, but things you hear. (I have been a confirmation catechist for several years, and they ask weird questions lol) When I say “open to life” they seem to get it. like…no blockers (ie: contraceptions) because that removes the “openness” to life.

So, while it is true that the correct term is “ordered toward procreation”, I have definitely had more success helping people understand using terms they understand more. And when I evangelize or teach, I would rather win them over with understanding, them lead them deeper to true definitions. 🙂
 
Exactly my point: the goal is the same, but the means are different. Assuming just intentions, it’s not the goal that is condemned, but the means to achieve it.

It seems it was less of an issue in the past. Most people wanted to have as many kids as possible (the OT is full of expressions of this sentiment)–post industrial revolution, things seemed to get more difficult leading to more fear about adding children. Also, their knowledge may not have been absolutely precise as it is now, but people know about the fertility cycle. In any event, abstaining–either for a period of time or definitively–for a just cause has never been condemned.

On the on the hand, even in the earliest days the Church condemned drugs that caused sterility, etc. as well as practices like Onanism.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top