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NFP CONTACT INFO

If you would like to learn more about NFP, or if you would like to register for a first-time or refresher class, contact:

Emily Beier
Office of Natural Family Planning
608-821-3134
E-Mail: nfp@straphael.org

By Jessica Smith, former NFP Coord.

NFP: It's Supernatural

NFP: Think Outside the Pill

Mythbusters: The Skinny on NFP

Think Outside the Pill-->audio

Sold on NFP? (Introducing a springtime for intimacy.)

Green is the new black

NFP-only clinic a sign of hope

Other NFP/ Fertility Related Articles

Infertility Treatments, in accord w/ the Church

One Author's Slogan: "Practice Saved Sex!"

Answering Four Common Objections

Discerning Family Size

What's a "just & serious cause"?

Istit. Practices Reproductive Medicine...and Catholicism

Important Church Documents

Christian Family in the Modern World

On Christian Marriage

Preparation for Marriage

The One About Contraception

On the Dignity & Vocation of Women

Ethical Directives for Catholic Health Services

Do you love Natural Family Planning?

If you have, please consider becoming an NFP teacher. We are currently experiencing an increase in NFP inquiries and class requests, but don't have enough active teachers to meet every need. We especially need candidates for:

Spanish speaking clients
Sympto-thermal methods (Couple to Couple League & Northwest )
Medical environments (Physicians, Nurses, Pharmacists, PAs,etc.)

All you need is a desire to spread the good news about NFP and the motivation to complete initial training. Medical background is a bonus, and NFP medical professionals are always needed! For more information, contact the Diocesan Family Planning Coordinator, Emily Beier.

March 15, 2010

Family Planning

Welcome to the Family Planning page for the Madison Diocese! We're here to spread the good news about fertility, sex and Marriage. Whether you're a first time inquirer, a skeptical critic or a long-time lover of Natural Family Planning, we want to help you find what you need.

First time checking into Natural Family Planning? Try NFP Basics. Got Questions? Try FAQS.

Recent Articles

Q1.
Not Just Because ‘The Church Says So’

By: Emily Beier, NFP Coordinator, Diocese of Madison

I often hear well-meaning proponents of Natural Family Planning (NFP) say, “The Church teaches that contraception is a sin, but the use of NFP is morally acceptable.”

NFP is not “acceptable” or “right” simply because the Church says so, or even because the Bible says so (cf Genesis 38:8-10, Genesis 1:27-28, Gal. 5: 19-2, to name a few). Rather, it is “right” because it is in keeping with the truth of the great dignity of the human person. It is anthropologically “right”. Church teaching plays the role of proclaiming what is inherently true in reality, in the way God created the world and us. What do I mean?

Karol Wojtyla (later, Pope John Paul II) explained in Love and Responsibility that the human person has such great dignity, based on having been created in the image and likeness of God, that it is never permissible to use a person as a means to an end. Put positively, a human person must always be treated with love—love that always seeks the ultimate good of a person: eternal life. As creatures made in God’s image and likeness, we are meant for the amazing and lofty vocation of sharing in the ecstatic union that the Blessed Trinity shares! In the daily routine of earthly life, this means that every thing we do with, for and to another human person must take into consideration this ultimate reality.

The realm of sexual love is no exception. The ultimate reality of who we are and where we’re going is made flesh in our world now, today through the total gift of spouses to one another.

The reality that the Church and Sacred Scripture proclaim about the human person’s destiny for love (to love and to be loved) is upheld by the openness to life and gift of spouses to each other inherent to the practice of Natural Family Planning. Conversely, when spouses give themselves to each other through their bodies, but deliberately withhold from one another their fertility, they demean themselves and each other by refusing to love completely. Whether intending to or not, they end up using each other for the pleasure, the fling, the romance of it all, without regard for the built-in fruit of those things—the possibility of participating in God’s creativity by welcoming another person into their union of love.

Many may question this definition of love. Who says love must be ‘total’ in order to be valid and true? We need look no further than the cross of Christ. As Catholics, and particularly during the Lenten season, we have the privilege of gazing upon not just an empty cross, but also on the body of Christ, stretched out over the wood. This is the sign of love, that “he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). Christ, God himself, stopped at nothing to pour himself out in love for his own Bride, the Church. His earthly mission was twofold: to reveal the face of God to man, and to reveal man to man himself (cf Gaudium et Spes 22). In other words, because of Christ, all of humanity has seen who God is and what He’s all about (unending love), and has received, in Christ, a model of who and what we are called to become (unending love). The definition of love is based on who God is; our calling to love like Him is based on our having been made like Him. “Man…cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself (Gaudium et Spes, 24).”

Openness to love and life afforded us by NFP enfleshes God’s love in our relationships and helps us grow in the virtues necessary to become love ourselves.

The key to a truly good and loving marital relationship is only found by upholding the essence of who we are and striving to reach our eternal destiny with God. And not just because “the Church says so.”

NFP Classes/ Talks

To Register for NFP Classes
Contact the Office of Natural Family Planning
608.821.3134 / nfp@straphael.org

Natural Family Planning
Class Schedule
Spring 2010

NFP 101: The Basics
A one-time, hour-long introduction to NFP, how it works, what it's all about, and to how to choose a method.
$10 registration.
[Choose one of the following dates]:
♦     1/13, 3/10, 5/12
       Bishop O'Connor Center, Madison, 7pm
Additional sessions are offered at St. Paul’s University Catholic Center (UW).
Contact NFP Office for more information.

Couple to Couple League(Sympto-Thermal):
$135 for three-class course, follow-ups, optional postpartum and premenopause classes, CCL membership, all materials and NFP kit.
♦      2/21, 3/21, 4/18  [attend all three class dates]
        St. Clement, Lancaster, 6-8pm
♦      4/24, 5/22, 6/26 [attend all three class dates]
        Bishop O'Connor Center, Madison, 10am-12:30pm

Creighton Intro Class (Ovulation Method):
Cost: $55 with materials. Follow-up sessions are private and scheduled with instructor (up to 8 follow-ups: $30 each over one year). Choose one of the following Intro Class dates:
♦      1/11, 1/19, 2/1, 2/16, 3/1, 3/16, 4/12, 4/20, 5/3, 5/18
        Bishop O'Connor Center, Madison, 6pm

Ovulation Method Intro Class (Family of the Americas Foundation):
Cost: $65 for materials, Intro Class fee, and 5 follow-ups (scheduled individually). Additional follow-ups $10 each. Choose one of the following Intro Class dates:
♦      2/3, 3/3, 4/14, 5/5
        St. Paul University Catholic Center (UW-Madison),
        7-8:30pm

Marquette Method (Uses Electronic Hormonal Fertility Monitor):
Cost: $75 for two class sessions, materials, charts, follow-ups.
A class will be available in April 2010 (dates and location TBD). Please contact the NFP Office if you are interested in this method.

* While there is fee for the classes, no one will be turned away for inability to pay the full amount. Please make your decision based on the method that will best fit your family, rather than on cost.

Can't find a class to fit your schedule? Check the schedule of the Diocese of LaCrosse or of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, or contact the Office of Natural Family Planning in Madison about a homestudy course.

NFP Awareness Week is July 19-26, 2009

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week is a national educational campaign. The Natural Family Planning Program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops develops a poster each year with basic supportive materials. It is the individual dioceses however, that offer a variety of educational formats in the local church to focus attention on Natural Family Planning methods and Church teachings which support their use in marriage.

The dates of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week highlight the anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (July 25) which articulates Catholic beliefs about human sexuality, conjugal love and responsible parenthood. The dates also mark the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne (July 26), the parents of the Blessed Mother. For further information, contact nfp@usccb.org.

Stay tuned for more information from the Diocesan Office!
Click here to download or order the poster.

Here's a great blog entry with more ideas for celebrating NFP Week!