The seven-minute video, produced by the Archdiocese of Detroit and which has attracted close to 2,000 YouTube views in a year, looks at three questions in the marriage ceremony that are asked before the vows are taken, and discusses how they relate to Natural Family Planning (NFP).

The video is moderated by Fr. Jeff Day, spiritual advisor for Natural Family Planning for the archdiocese. The first question is “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves in marriage?” Fr. Day explains that NFP allows a couple to give themselves freely, because each spouse accepts all of each other, including the other’s fertility and infertility. Contraception, on the other hand, does not.

The second question is, “Will you love and honor each other for the rest of your lives?” Fr. Day points to a crucifix during his homily and talks about the sacrificial love of Christ on the cross. When couples use NFP, “They are more easily able to imitate this sacrificial love within their marriages,” he says.

The third question is, “Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?” Fr. Day explains, “If a couple is using Natural Family Planning, they are open to the number of children that God might bless them with.” He adds that if there is a serious reason to avoid pregnancy they can use NFP.

Couples Give Testimony

Several couples in the video give testimony to their beliefs. One woman, Lauren, explains, “Love without respect wouldn’t be love at all. It would just be lust for each other. We can’t separate sex and fertility. We have to apply this to our sexuality. We have to accept them together.”

The Archdiocese of Detroit offers more videos about NFP on a two-disk DVD with testimonies of 17 couples and two medical professionals.

NFP Classes in the Chicago Area

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Sun., Mar. 21, 2010 at 6 pm at St. Irene’s parish in Warrenville, IL, and will be taught by Mike and Denise Kenealy, 630-393-2180. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Dustin now has a greater appreciation for his wife.

(Feb. 22, 2010) Chicago-area couples wondering about which birth control to use would be helped to know that a popular blogger has drawn up five winning reasons how Natural Family Planning (NFP) has benefitted his marriage.

Writing on his blog EngagedMarriage.com, Dustin Riechmann says, “My wife and I have a great deal of peace about our sex life both from an intimacy standpoint and on the moral/religious/spiritual front.  And trust me, that’s saying a lot for a young Catholic couple trying to do the right thing.”

For the first four years of their marriage they used the birth control pill, and when they found NFP, they no longer had any of the “lingering, often back-of-mind” worries about whether they were harming her health, “marginalizing” their intimacy, or reducing their sex life to something less than it should be, Dustin says. He added that “it does require some periods of abstinence and we men aren’t the biggest fans of that idea.”

Five Reasons that Rock

The Riechmanns have worked in the marriage preparation classes for the Catholic diocese of Springfield, IL for five years and have received more than 7,000 web visits in only a few months. Here are their “Five Benefits of NFP for Marriage,” summarized.

1. A Stronger Bond. My wife and I have always been close and shared a special bond.  After all, we got married and have been a happy couple for many years.  However, when we started learning about Natural Family Planning and then started to put it into practice together, we grew closer on a level that I never knew was there previously.

When you can talk about the intricacies of your wife’s fertility signs (because you’ve bothered to learn them) and interpret those signs by her side (because you really care), you have a good bond….

2. Open Communication.  Listen, I have talked to my wife routinely about basal body temperatures and cervical mucus…. I am confident that I have more knowledge of the female fertility cycle than five generations of my forefathers combined.

Who cares?  My wife.  She knows that I care about her body, her sexuality and her soul because we routinely communicate about it.  You cannot effectively practice Natural Family Planning without improving the level of communication in your marriage….  I simply cannot imagine a more intimate and sacred topic of conversation than that of fertility and the willingness to accept children (or not).  My wife and I have these discussions on a regular basis, and it has made us excellent communicators in all aspects of our marriage.

3. Mutual Decision Making.  When we decide if we are going to have sex during the “transitional” times between fertility phases, it is a complete and total mutual decision.  It really cannot be one-sided and it requires open communication.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of times throughout each month where total spontaneity are possible…and fantastic.  But there are those times where we have to think together and reach important mutual decisions.  For us, this ability to make decisions together has enhanced everything from our finances to our parenting skills.

4. Raises Appreciation of Intimacy.  This one rocks.  We used birth control for the first four years of our marriage, and we thought we were getting all that we could out of our sex life.  We were wrong.

With the introduction of Natural Family Planning, the intimacy in our marriage (both inside and outside of the bedroom) achieved entirely new levels.  It wasn’t that things were all that different physically, but they were worlds better emotionally and spiritually…..

5. Marriage Insurance.  I think this term really sums up the value of all the other benefits in a very real and tangible way.  I’ll let the statistics speak for themselves: The divorce rate for couples practicing Natural Family Planning is less than 5%. For the general population, it is nearly 50%.

NFP Classes in the Chicago Area

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Sun., Mar. 21, 2010 at 6 pm at St. Irene’s parish in Warrenville, IL, and will be taught by Mike and Denise Kenealy, 630-393-2180. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

The Pill is linked to breast cancer.

A study concerning the deadly “triple negative” breast cancer, involving  more than 1200 women aged 20 - 45, found a “distinct etiology,” or cause and effect, for women who used oral contraception for longer than a year, and an even stronger correlation for women who began using it before the age of 18.

The study was published in the April 2009 Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, and gathered information over a five-year period. The study’s main author, Jessica Dolle, and other researchers at the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, found that oral contraceptive use for a year or more “was associated with a 2.7-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer.” Triple negative breast cancer is a subtype of cancer associated with a high mortality and there is little hope for a cure.

Age, Family History, Abortion Are Among Other Causes

“Specifically,” the study said, “older age, family history of breast cancer, earlier menarche age [beginning of menstruation], induced abortion, and oral contraceptive use were associated with an increased risk for breast cancer.”

“Our study has the strength of being population based and is the largest of its kind to evaluate breast cancer subtypes and etiologic [causation] differences in young women,” the study said.

In women 40 years of age and older, the danger was greater, the study said. The use of oral contraception for one year or greater “was associated with a four-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer.”

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), on the other hand, has long denied any real connection between oral contraceptives and breast cancer. Its website cites one study of oral contraceptives which showed only a “slightly elevated risk” for breast cancer. Another study cited showed that oral contraceptives “did not significantly increase” the chance of breast cancer. A third study mentioned on the website admitted only that women who were diagnosed within five years of using the pill, especially younger women, were the most affected with breast cancer.

Other than skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States, according to the NCI. Nearly 200,000 women were diagnosed in the U.S. last year with breast cancer.

In the light of recent studies such as the Dolle report, many experts are now claiming that crucial information is being withheld from women about the dangers of oral contraception who could otherwise avoid this disease.

Natural Family Planning a Healthy Alternative

Natural Family Planning (NFP), with its reliance on a thermometer and charts, is completely safe and a good alternative to artificial methods. And, according to the Couple to Couple League International, the method is 99% effective when used correctly by motivated couples. Proper education is necessary for this high effectiveness rate.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Sun., Feb. 14, 2010 at 1:30 pm at Holy Trinity Church in Westmont. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

In the letter, “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan,” the bishops based their teaching on Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (on Human Life), which states that the unitive and procreative meanings of marriage must not be separated, as they are in contraception.

The letter also discusses Natural family planning (NFP), which can be used both to achieve and to postpone a pregnancy:

NFP makes use of periodic abstinence from sexual intercourse based upon the observation of the woman’s natural signs of fertility, in order to space births or to limit the number of children when there is a serious reason to do so. NFP methods require that couples learn, accept, and live with the wonders of how God made them. This is essentially different from contraception.

Openness to procreation in the marital act involves acknowledg[ing] that one is not the master of the sources of life. Using the technology of contraception is an attempt at such mastery. By contrast, couples using methods of NFP do nothing to alter the conjugal act. Rather, they abstain from conjugal relations during the portion of the woman‘s menstrual cycle when conception is most likely. This practice fosters in couples an attitude of respect and wonder in the face of human life, which is sacred. It also fosters profound respect for one’s spouse, which is necessary for the mutual enjoyment of authentic intimacy.

The four challenges to marriage today, the bishops said, are: contraception, same-sex unions, divorce, and cohabitation.

Concerning marriage and children, the bishops said,

There is a loss of belief in the value of those purposes when couples readily treat, as separate choices, the decisions to get married and to have children. This indicates a mentality in which children are seen not as integral to a marriage but as optional. When children are viewed in this way, there can be damaging consequences not only for them but also for the marriage itself.

Longing in Our Souls

In the January/February issue of the Couple to Couple League’s (CCL) Family Foundations, CCL Executive Director Michael Manhart commented on the bishops’ letter and said that all of us are called to communion according to our vocation in life. “[T]his is a longing burning into our souls, but many have mistakenly bought into the false promises of contraception and the short-sighted idea that private relationships have no consequences beyond the two persons involved.”

* * Read our story about Dawn Farias, * *
“How Natural Family Planning Changed My Life.”

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Sick of the Pill? Try NFP

(Jan. 14, 2010) Jesse, the mother of a newborn in Bloomfield, NE, began taking the birth control pill Yasmin and never suspected it would cause problems. She had talked to her doctor about its possible side effects and he mentioned only blood clots. But after only a few months on the drug, she suffered severe stomach pains, and a medical exam revealed that she needed gall bladder surgery.

“I thought you could only get blood clots if you were a smoker, so I wasn’t worried about taking this drug,” Jesse argues on a lawyers’ website. “I guess I trusted doctors and drugs in general…. I wasn’t worried about Yasmin.”

Jesse is one of the many women suing Bayer Pharmaceuticals after taking the very popular Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills and suffering serious complications.

According to court documents, six new cases filed in Pittsburg last month allege fraud, civil conspiracy and commercial bribery, specifically indicating Bayer made “false representations” about the safety of their product, says the lawyers’ website, Avvo.com.

The civil suits filed seek punitive and compensatory damages totaling $150,000. Nationally, more than 150 complaints have now targeted Bayer for the marketing of its contraceptives.

The Food and Drug Administration in September sent a letter of warning to Bayer Health Care, warning them of inadequate manufacturing safeguards in the making of their birth control pills.

Fed Up

“People all over are becoming fed up with the physical problems with artificial birth control, and this is one of the reasons they try Natural Family Planning,” says Monica Cassidy, of the Couple to Couple League of Chicago. “You don’t fool with mother nature.”

Natural Family Planning (NFP), with its reliance only on a thermometer and charts, is completely safe and a good alternative to artificial methods. According to the Couple to Couple League International, the method is 99% effective when used correctly by motivated couples. Proper education is necessary for this high effectiveness rate.

NFP is not often heard about because it cannot compete with the multi-million dollar advertising budgets of the pharmaceuticals.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes throughout the U.S., go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Breastfeeding has health, financial, bonding, and child-spacing benefits.

(Jan. 7, 2010) More women are realizing that mom’s milk is best, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The practice of breastfeeding has been increasing for the last decade, with recent data showing 74 percent of new mothers breastfeeding. That’s up from 68 percent in 1999.

And women appear to be breastfeeding longer, with 43 percent still doing so at six months and 23 percent at 12 months (up from 33 percent at 6 months and 15 percent at 12 months in 1999), says the CDC.

“You can save $1,000 to $3,000 a year just by breast-feeding,” says Gina Cicatelli Ciagne, director of breast-feeding and consumer relations for Lansinoh, which sells breast-feeding accessories. Ciagne was quoted in a recent Sun-Sentinel.com story.

But there is more than a cost savings involved here. There are superior nutrition and health benefits. And for many, it’s the nurturing component between mother and child that keeps mothers practicing it.

Besides that, breastfeeding provides an average of 14 to 15 months of postpartum infertility for those women who follow its guidelines, according to The Couple to Couple League Central (CCL). (Read the first part of CCL’s book The Art of Breastfeeding free.)

CCL offers a supplemental Postpartum Class to help breastfeeding mothers understand the return to fertility. (See our story, “Breastfeeding Benefits Becoming Recognized.”) The class is free and is open to any current CCL member. Breastfeeding is also taught by La Leche League.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Bishop Listecki has defended Catholic teaching on birth control.

(Dec. 29, 2009) A group of young Catholics promoting a worldwide advertising campaign to push contraception “disown their Catholic heritage,” according to an outspoken Catholic bishop who will soon become the bishop of Milwaukee.

Young Catholics for Choice, part of the Washington, D.C.-based Catholics for Choice, has launched a television campaign in Wisconsin and has partnered with the Wisconsin Family Planning Health Services to promote condom use and the “morning after” pill. The national office has begun a website with the theme, “Good Catholics Use Condoms.” The plan is for ads to appear on bus shelters, subways, billboards and in newspapers around the world.

“While people can call themselves whatever they want, it is my duty as a bishop to state clearly and unequivocally that by professing and disseminating views in grave contradiction to Catholic teaching, members of organizations like ‘Young Catholics for Choice’ in fact disown their Catholic heritage, tragically distancing themselves from that communion with the Church to which they are called,” said the archbishop in a statement Dec. 15.

Bishop Listecki is an outspoken pro-life bishop, and in 2007 clashed with Catholics for Choice in opposing the Wisconsin legislature that supported a bill that would force Catholics hospitals to administer the morning after pill. The bill passed in 2008.

Morning-after Pill Causes Abortion

The morning-after pill works by causing an abortion of the newly-conceived life. The pill also threatens women’s health since its hormone dosage is ten times higher than that of normal birth control pills using the same hormone, according to FDA research.

Many couples dissatisfied with the side effects of hormonal birth control discover Natural Family Planning (NFP) as a healthy and moral alternative.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League (CCL) to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

(Dec. 22, 2009) Kathleen Quiring is a self-described “fancy-pants trendy individual” who rethought some of her opinions on Natural Family Planning (NFP) after writing to the author of a new blog on marriage whose popularity is skyrocketing.

Intrigued with an impressive-looking website graced with an articulate and charitable defense of NFP, Kathleen, married and in her 20’s, carried on an intense discussion of the merits of this method with Dustin Riechmann, 30, who writes regularly on his new blog, Engaged Marriage.

“Not only was I incredibly impressed by the blog overall,” Kathleen wrote, “but I was also intrigued by its informative coverage of NFP. It didn’t take long before I was thinking to myself, “I really need to rethink some of my opinions on natural family planning.”

Kathleen, a Protestant, then did internet searches and now writes favorably on her own blog, Project M, about “this really cool but highly misunderstood phenomenon.”

Hugely Popular Blog

Dustin knows the "amazing rewards" of a great marriage.

Launched only three months ago, Engaged Marriage has been viewed by 7,000 people, most of them in the last month. The idea for the blog came upon the heels of Dustin’s involvement for five years in the marriage preparation classes for the Catholic diocese of Springfield, IL.

“Our talk is focused primarily on the real meaning and depth of sexuality,” said Dustin, an engineer by trade. “And it provides a real (and candid) overview of Natural Family Planning (NFP).  Our journey to and with NFP is a long story, but it’s safe to say that we can relate to young couples and convey why NFP is the best thing that we have done for our own marriage.”

With the motto of the website, “Achieving the Extraordinary in Marriage… and in Life!” Dustin, who with his wife received their NFP instruction from the Couple to Couple League, says that NFP and sexuality are a core part of the website.

“I really started to see an opportunity to connect with married couples in a better and broader way,” he says of the blog’s origins.  “Finally, a few months back, I felt a call to pursue an online presence where many people could be reached, particularly younger couples.  And I decided I had more to share than just NFP, though sexuality remains a core topic on Engaged Marriage and one of the most popular.”

(Read also our NFP conversion stories: Cohabiting Couple, NFP Turns Husband into a “Joseph.”)

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League (CCL) to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Married love involves sacrifice and an openness to children.

The couple, who had come from the East Coast, took a marriage preparation class that involved Natural Family Planning (NFP), and were so impressed by a witness couple’s talk and with the relationship with their mentors that they decided to abstain before their marriage.

“I have to say at the time I wasn’t a very well-formed Catholic,” Toni recalled.  “To me it was perfectly normal to live with your boyfriend and use birth control, but upon reflection the act was totally desensitizing. And the fact is that for a woman to use birth control … is not good for her health.”

Conversion Experience

Mike, for his part, called it a conversion experience, and said, “What made the impression for us was the testimony of a married couple, our mentors in the class, and their journey about discovering the sacredness of the sacrament of matrimony,” Mike told the Denver Catholic Register.

After starting the class they agreed to abstain before marriage. They lived under the same roof but in separate bedrooms. Toni said that at the time she did not understand her faith too well, but that was about to change. “For me, this was the beginning to get back on the path of being obedient to the Church and renewing my love for God and the faith.”

The conversion aspect of the story is similar to that of other couples, such as that on this website of Dawn and Ariel Farias.

Welcoming God

Mike said that the decision to abstain got them off to a good start. “I feel it helped us welcome God in our marriage and reminded us that there are other things that come before us, such as raising children. It taught us not to be selfish,” Mike told the Register.

Mike and Toni (not their real names), of western Colorado, have been married for a decade and have several children.  Mike works outside the home while Toni is a homemaker.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League (CCL) to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.

Artificial birth control's side effects led the Mealeys to look at NFP.

(Nov. 30, 2009) When they first married, Tom and Misty Mealey used artificial birth control and were not at all what you would consider a religious couple. Tom was an agnostic and Misty an atheist. But the hormonal birth control had side effects, and their eyes were opened to Natural Family Planning (NFP).

“I was suspicious of all the ‘hocus pocus’ involving thermometers at o’ dark-thirty in the morning,” Tom related. “That would all change in surprising ways once we got into living the NFP lifestyle,” he said. Having their first child, and the couple’s study of the Theology of the Body changed their thinking to a new way of life.

In an article, “Be Her Joseph,” Tom relates that when they had their first child, “we realized the Holy Spirit had already led us into a Catholic life. Even after our conversion, however, NFP grew our relationship with each other and with God in ways we never expected.”

NFP Strengthened Marriage

Learning and practicing NFP changed Tom’s perspective of his marriage.  He said he was surprised to learn how grateful his wife was that he was willing to learn how her body worked. He said that he now shared the family planning responsibility and found non-sexual ways of expressing affection and intimacy when they had good reasons to postpone pregnancy. He said that NFP “strengthened our marriage and made me a better husband and father.”

Rather than subject his wife to the spiritual and physical consequences of contraception, a man can be another St. Joseph to his wife, he says, and “defend her virtue, body, and soul by using NFP.”

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League (CCL) to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.