Sooner Catholic soonercatholic.org July 14, 2013 archokc.org U.S. Supreme U.S. bishops to educate Catholics through Court will Natural Family Planning Awareness Week review Okla. By Sarah Cooper Even though Pope Paul VI spoke out strongly against For the Sooner Catholic artificial birth control, many Catholics continued to disre- abortion law This year, the members of the United States Conference gard the teaching. of Catholic Bishops have designated July 21 to July 27 as "I believe most couples do not use NFP because they do By Anamaría Scaperlanda Natural Family Planning Awareness week. The theme — not understand that it is a viable method or that the Biddick "Pro-Woman, Pro-Man, Pro-Child, Natural Family Church teaches that artificial contraception is a sin," said For the Sooner Catholic Planning" — reaffirms the idea that natural family plan- Gail Hunt, an Oklahoma City-area NFP teacher. "Artificial contraception has become so mainstream that it is accept- Late last month, on June 27, ning upholds the dignity of life and God's vision for human able in the minds of many people. This misunderstanding the United States Supreme Court sexuality. comes with a heavy price to marriages and health." agreed to review the decision of "Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit?" Another local NFP instructor, Robin Spaid, echoed the Supreme Court of Oklahoma Hunt. in a case to determine the consti- Because of the ongoing, divisive debate on healthcare coverage in the United States, the Church's opposition to "Today's Catholic couples either don't know about NFP tutionality of a law to regulate at all or they don't know enough," she said. "The ones who unsafe chemical abortions. contraception has been more in the news recently. The U.S. bishops have been forced to speak out against the Health have heard of it think it is overly time-consuming and dif- Oklahoma H.B. 1970 requires and Human Services mandate to employers to provide ficult. The reality is that NFP is no more difficult and that abortion-inducing drugs, employees with health insurance that covers contracep- avoids the side effects of artificial methods. The Church including RU-486, be adminis- tives and abortifacients. needs to make its position and reasoning clear. We have tered according to the protocol Yet, the clash between Church described on the drugs' FDA- teaching and a contraceptive cul- approved labels. ture is nothing new. The Church Since RU-486 was approved in has always opposed artificial birth September 2000, off-label use has control. Contraception was first con- led to more than 2,200 cases of demned both in the Bible and by severe adverse effects, including the early Church fathers. at least eight deaths, according to "Why do you sow where the field FDA reports. is eager to destroy the fruit, where When the Oklahoma Supreme there are medicines of sterility, Court heard Cline vs. Oklahoma where there is murder before Coalition for Reproductive Justice birth?" asked Saint John in December 2012, it declared Chrysostom as early as the fourth H.B. 1970 to be unconstitutional. century. "Indeed, it is something The case came to the U.S. worse than murder, and I do not Supreme Court at the request of know what to call it, for she does Oklahoma Attorney General Scott not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you Pruitt, who disagreed with the condemn the gift of God and fight opinion of the Oklahoma Supreme with his laws?" Court. The Catholic Church stresses In agreeing to review the case, that the marriage covenant must the U.S. Supreme Court has always be unitive and procreative in "asked the Supreme Court of nature. At every Catholic wedding, Dr. Anne Mielnik, left, founding director of Gianna — The Catholic Healthcare Center Oklahoma to answer two ques- the bride and groom are asked, for Women, prays with patient Judith Guzman in the center's office in New York. tions that will assist them in their "Will you accept children lovingly Located in midtown Manhattan, the center is dedicated to providing primary care, analysis" of whether the state from God, and bring them up obstetrics, natural family planning and infertility treatment with a Catholic pro-life Supreme Court was right to according to the law of Christ and approach. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz) decide as it did, according to his Church?" Pruitt. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Spouses certainly failed to do so in the past and we are dealing continued on page 5 share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. with the consequences of that failure in our society today." Married couples should regard it as their proper mission Archbishop Paul Coakley said he would like to make to transmit human life." NFP training a more integral and complete part of mar- By using artificial contraception, the Church believes, riage preparation for all couples in the Archdiocese of humans are interfering with the divine work of God Oklahoma City. through holy matrimony. Theologians have warned that "Natural family planning, unfortunately, is one of our the contraceptive mentality will take a toll on society. The best-kept secrets," the archbishop said. "There is so much catechism refers to contraception as "intrinsically evil." misunderstanding and misinformation about NFP. It is a During the 1960s, when the birth control pill became beautiful way for couples to cooperate with God in achiev- popular, many Catholics believed the Church would relax ing pregnancy, and, when there are sound reasons for its rules on contraception as the Protestant churches had. doing so, to avoid pregnancy. It's based on the careful Pope Paul VI did just the opposite. He confirmed the observations of the signs of fertility in a woman's body. Church's teaching on birth control in 1968 through the Couples who practice NFP find that it helps them commu- encyclical "Humanae Vitae." nicate with each other and take mutual responsibility for "Those who enjoy the gift of conjugal love while respect- their decisions about achieving and avoiding pregnancy." ing the laws of the generative process show that they "We need more qualified instructors who can teach acknowledge themselves to be not the masters of the NFP to other couples," he added. "That's the beautiful sources of human life, but rather the ministers of the thing about it. It is shared by couples who have recognized design established by the creator," the pope wrote in and experienced its value and effectiveness in their mar- "Humanae Vitae." riage." "In fact, just as man does not have unlimited domain NFP has come a long way, baby over his body in general, so also, with particular reason, The term "natural family planning" encompasses a has he no such dominion over his generative faculties as number of methods used to either achieve or avoid preg- such because of their intrinsic ordination to the bringing nancy by noting changes in the woman's cycle. Fertile peri- into being of life, of which God is the source and origin," he ods in a woman's reproductive years are charted by recog- continued. nizing variations in temperature, cervical mucus or both. One of the best-kept secrets of the Church continued on page 5 2 July 14, 2013 Sooner Catholic Put Out Into the Deep Luke 5:4 Exclusively on National NFP Awareness Week: the website "Pro-woman, Pro-man, Pro-child" By Sooner Catholic Staff Additional coverage of Let's face it: Couples who embrace the practice of because for many couples Church and archdiocesan natural family planning (NFP) are countercultural. it helps them recognize news and events, only on They are swimming against the tide. They bear wit- the optimum time for www.soonercatholic.com: ness to a value that has lost its luster in our society, conceiving a child. They the beauty and goodness of fertility. NFP couples rec- know when they will be As Archbishop Paul Coakley ognize that fertility is neither a nuisance nor a curse, most receptive to God's writes in his column at left, but a great blessing. It is not a disease to be treated creative power working Natural Family Planning and suppressed with chemicals, but a gift to be received through them and the Archbishop Paul S. Coakley Awareness Week is July 21 with respect and reverence. gift of their fertility to to July 27. For more informa- Contrary to both medical evidence and common create new life. tion about natural family plan- sense, our federal government treats fertility as a dis- Because it involves the cooperation of both the hus- ning, visit www.archokc.org/ ease. The Department of Health and Human Services band and wife, NFP enriches marriages by fostering office-of-family-life/home. The (HHS) mandates that all government-approved contra- communication, mutual respect and self-mastery. USCCB also has multiple ceptives (including abortion-inducing drugs) be includ- Husbands and wives must talk about their readiness resources about NFP available ed among the "preventive services" in all health insur- for pregnancy and decide together whether this is the at usccb.org. ance plans. This policy decision is a betrayal; it mani- time to abstain from sexual intimacy. This conversa- fests a profound bias against life and fertility. It is a tion and shared responsibility for their actions fosters Saint Gregory’s Abbey in sad irony that the widespread availability of chemical respect for one another's emotional and physical needs Shawnee hosts a Saint contraceptives coincides with a rising demand for infer- and encourages true tenderness in responding to one Kateri Tekakwitha powwow tility treatments among couples who are unable to con- another during fertile times.