The Scandal of NFP: Vortex

A recent Mic’d Up show focused on NFP, which, as you regular readers know, is a subjectabout which I’ve written enough posts to fill a book...see it in the sidebar there (second book down)?

MV gives a brief recap of the issue in this Vortex; I have also embedded the segment from the show here as well. I called in at about the 29 minute mark with a couple of comments.

Both in the Mic’d Up segment and in the Vortex, MV mentioned the fact that the use of NFP requires “serious reasons”. In the Vortex he says:

If you go to the US Bishop’s website, [NFP] is actually celebrated as a good in itself. Not a single word is mentioned with regard to the fact that NFP is actually a dispensation from what has been taught for centuries by the Church.

There is no mention at all of the blessing that large families are and that THIS is the default if a couple engages in the marital embrace.

Now let’s be VERY EXTRA CLEAR here. No one is saying that there are not serious reasons for HAVING to limit the number of children a couple will have. But the reasons must be SERIOUS, GRAVE.

Birth control does not have
admirable roots!

At this point, a number of NFP promoters are likely to jump in with comments to the effect that “serious” or “grave” is a bad translation, that the proper word is “just”, and so on. If you are tempted to put something like that in the combox, please refrain. I’m addressing it right here.

The point I wanted to make when I called in to the show was this: for the sake of argument, let’s accept any reason that the couple wishes to use as a valid reason for their limiting of births.  The real crux of the matter is that the use of NFP constitutes birth control. There can be no doubt, no argument that NFP is birth control. One may argue that it is not “contraception”, but it is clearly an attempt to control the number of births, and therefore it is “birth control”.

The bottom line is that the Church has never taught that birth control is desirable. It may be permissible – in the form of periodic continence, or even total abstinence – but it is not desirable. It is permitted; it is not to be promoted. As MV says in the Vortex (my emphases):

  

So when NFP is employed by a couple, it is usually for a very sad set of circumstances in their lives. Mental illness, great physical impairment and crushing financial issues are not good things to have to experience.

But in many cases, this is not how NFP is “sold” in the Church these days. It has much more of a feeling of “hey, look, we Catholics can have sex and avoid pregnancy just like the contraceptive culture, but we don’t use ARTIFICAL methods, so we are square with God.”

That is a turning on its head of the understanding of what marriage is all about. It is, at least partially, a caving in to the cultural understanding that children are a burden, something to be avoided if possible. Children are a blessing.

I pray for a re-emergence of the Church teaching of the blessing of a large family!

Here are the Vortex and the Mic’d Up segment; the script for the Vortex is below them.

Script for the Vortex episode:

For quite a few years now, decades actually, Natural Family Planning has been touted in the Church as the answer to the only anti-life culture of contraception.

If you go to the US Bishop’s website, it’s actually celebrated as a good in itself. Not a single word is mentioned with regard to the fact that NFP is actually a dispensation from what has been taught for centuries by the Church.

There is no mention at all of the blessing that large families are and that THIS is the default if a couple engages in the marital embrace.

Now let’s be VERY EXTRA CLEAR here. No one is saying that there are not serious reasons for HAVING to limit the number of children a couple will have.

But the reasons must be SERIOUS, GRAVE. The default is to engage in the marital act and accept whatever, if any children God blesses the couple with. THIS IS THE CATHOLIC UNDERSTANDING and always has been.

The Default – the usual manner – is that a couple is fertile and should participate freely with God in the bringing forth of new life.

The Default is NOT to look for an exception to the rule.

Issues like serious psychological or physical health reasons or HEAVY overwhelming financial burdens (for however short a time they may last) MAY be considerations for postponing conception.

And yes, SOME couples do face these sorts of issues, but again, these are the exceptions.

So when NFP is employed by a couple, it is usually for a very sad set of circumstances in their lives. Mental illness, great physical impairment and crushing financial issues are not good things to have to experience.

But in many cases, this is not how NFP is “sold” in the Church these days. It has much more of a feeling of “hey, look, we Catholics can have sex and avoid pregnancy just like the contraceptive culture, but we don’t use ARTIFICAL methods, so we are square with God.”

That is a turning on its head of the understanding of what marriage is all about. It is, at least partially, a caving in to the cultural understanding that children are a burden, something to be avoided if possible. Children are a blessing.

NFP is marketed by many in the Church, not the least of which is the Bishop’s conference as a kind of “contraception-lite”. This is wrong.

The first commandment given to the first couple was to be fruitful and multiply – not, “make sure you are well prepared and have all your finances, and home, and cars and bank accounts and college savings accounts in order – then help Me create new life.”

We’d like to recommend to you a further discussion we had on this on a recent episode of our weekly show, Mic’d Up.

We’ve edited down to the relevant portion of the show a very thought provoking discussion with a couple of our guests and that is available by just clicking on the link.

Again, no one here is trashing the authentic need for spacing of children in authentically challenging circumstances.

What we are trashing is the almost knee jerk reaction – the attitude, which sounds and feels very much like the culture at large that couples need to be taught how to have sex and avoid children AS A MATTER OF ROUTINE.

This is so routine that practically everyone in the culture who hears about NFP very quickly arrives at the label – Catholic Birth Control.

Please click on the link and watch the episode. [or watch the embedded version above]