Perhaps one of the most consequential decisions a wife and her husband can make in their marriage is how and when to bring new life into the world. While various forms of contraception are pervasive in our world, many Catholics are unaware of the scientific, moral, and healthy alternatives to contraceptive products for family planning. It is imperative to demonstrate that there are healthy, natural family planning alternatives.
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the general title for the scientific, natural, and moral methods of family planning that can help married couples achieve or postpone pregnancy. NFP methods are based on observing the naturally occurring signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of a woman's menstrual cycle. No drugs, devices, or surgical procedures are used to avoid pregnancy. Since the methods of NFP respect the love-giving (unitive) and life-giving (procreative) nature of the conjugal act, they support God's design for married love.
The papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV), written by Pope St. Paul VI in 1968, provides beautiful and clear teachings about God's plan for married love and the transmission of life. Below, you will find resources that will help you deepen your understanding of these teachings.
Below, you will find resources that will help you deepen your understanding of Catholic teachings.
Adam and Eve After the Pill
by Mary Eberstadt
Adam and Eve After the Pill examines as no book has before the seismic social changes caused by the sexual revolution. In examining human behavior in the post-liberation world, Eberstadt provocatively asks: Is food the new sex? Is pornography the new tobacco? Adam and Eve after the Pill will change the way readers view the paradoxical impact of the sexual revolution on ideas, morals, and humanity itself.
A Pastor's Wife's Journey Home (Audiobook)
by Kimberly Hahn
Kimberly Hahn, the daughter of a Protestant minister and wife of Dr. Scott Hahn, candidly shares her arduous journey into the Catholic faith. She explains how a close examination of the Church's teachings on family life and artificialcontraception led her to embrace the fullness of the faith and why she came to believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ.
Love, Marriage, & the Catholic Conscience:
Understanding the Church's Teachings on Love, Marriage, and the Catholic Conscience
by Dietrich von Hildebrand
What every Christian needs to know...about love, marriage, and contraception—eye-opening reasons to give these Church teachings a closer look.Finally, you can learn the whole truth about how contraception relates to loveand marriage, including:
· What the Church teaches about contraception
· Why do these teachings matter so much, and
· How do they fit into the larger picture of Christian love and marriage?
Humanae Vitae, 50 Years Later, Embracing God's Vision for Marriage, Love and Life, A Compendium.
Why Humanae Vitae was Right: A Reader, edited by Janet E. Smith
For the 25th anniversary of the historic Humanae Vitae (1968), Janet E. Smith has gathered twenty-one outstanding essays and articles by well-respected thinkers to demonstrate that Pope Paul VI was not simply correct but prophetic. While this document is still widely neglected and misunderstood, the Church continues to proclaim that contraception is a moral evil and that the view of man,sexuality, and marriage that leads to the use of the Pill is not compatible with human dignity, sexual responsibility, and married love.
Many of the topics below are posted throughout the NFP Section of the USCCB website. They are listed here for ease of reference and include links to other topics of interest and USCCB pages relevant to the human person, human sexuality, the virtue of chastity, marriage, conjugal love, responsible parenthood, procreation, children, and the family.
