NFP Is Not Required

NFP is an interesting topic…there’s a lot of emotion behind it, even though it really affects only about 2-3% of the Catholic population, as far as I can tell. There’s a committed group of people seeking to increase its usage, and there are a few nitpicking, nattering babobs like yours truly who think that’s not such a good idea.

Some readers believe I’m running counter to Church teaching by questioning the wisdom of promoting NFP while neglecting the important detail that it should be used only for “serious reasons”.

Also under attack seems to be the notion that there might be venial sin involved in the marital act, due to our fallen nature and tendency toward concupiscence.

It seems to me that underlying these protestations is the following line of reasoning – which really permeates modern society’s thinking (especially if you leave out the reference to God):

Sex is good, all the time, for married couples, because it is a gift from God.

Sex is a way of expressing love between husband and wife – the “unitive” end of marriage.

Therefore, it is good for a married couple to be able to have sex when the woman is not fertile so that they can still enjoy the “unitive” end of the marital act while avoiding pregnancy.

(Actually…I think the militant homosexualists have hijacked this train of thought, expanding it to include sex between or among any number of people regardless of gender.)

In order to maintain this line of reasoning, there’s a tendency to dismiss saints like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas – who explicitly addressed the problem of sin and concupiscence within marriage – as being outdated; as having been “corrected” in some way; and as being “not infallible”.

These objections seem to be coming mainly from those who want to promote NFP, some of whom want to leave the “serious reasons” for its use in a nebulous state to be “discerned” by the couple. These promoters believe that NFP should be taught to and practiced by many couples for a variety of reasons, not just for avoidance of pregnancy.

However, I would like to remind all concerned that the Church has taught from the beginning that couples should “be fruitful and multiply”, and that God never added a caveat to be “responsible” or “prudent” in that effort. In addition, the language used by the Church in describing marriage up until Vatican II included the phrase “generous parenthood” (in fact, that phrase is still used, but it is combined with the adjective “prudent”, and practically supplanted by the adjective “responsible”. More on that in another upcoming post).

It is not appropriate or even prudent to simply dismiss all that has been written about marriage before Vatican II. For instance, Popes Pius XI and XII acknowledged that periodic continence was licit, but they certainly did not condone its widespread use. They also acknowledged the dangers of concupiscence in the marital act. Are we to assume that they were in error and that their errors have now also been “corrected”?

I think it’s also important to keep in mind that in every place where periodic continence is mentioned in a Church document – even in recent times – the warning about “serious reasons” is always included. There is always the reminder that a couple should not consider that they have ultimate control over the procreative end of their marriage, because that would be usurping God’s right.

And while we may find a number of papal documents acknowledging that use of periodic continence for serious reasons is a licit use of the knowledge of a woman’s fertile periods, in none of those documents is it written that periodic continence must be used by a married couple. Rather, periodic continence is allowed, but really not encouraged.

What is encouraged is the idea that “husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church.” That’s Pope Pius XI talking, in Casti Connubiis. He’s talking about chastity vs. concupiscence, about love vs. sex. He goes on to say:

The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue. (par. 23)

In addition, Pope Pius XI has some sound suggestions for pre-marriage instruction, emphasizing obedience to the Church, where we may find the truth. He warns the faithful against “the overrated independence of private judgment and that false autonomy of human reason”, and says that if moral truth in general is difficult to discern without the help of the Church, then

…we must all the more pay attention to those things, which appertain to marriage where the inordinate desire for pleasure can attack frail human nature and easily deceive it and lead it astray. (par. 102)

And, interestingly enough, Pope Pius XI concludes that

Such wholesome instruction and religious training in regard to Christian marriage will be quite different from that exaggerated physiological education by means of which, in these times of ours, some reformers of married life make pretense of helping those joined in wedlock, laying much stress on these physiological matters, in which is learned rather the art of sinning in a subtle way than the virtue of living chastely. (par. 108)

That does give one pause, doesn’t it? 


Click on the NFP tab at the top of the page for a list of other NFP posts on this blog.