How NFP Professionals Bless a Parish

Over the last 30 years I’ve worked with over a dozen NFP professionals in my various parishes. Each of them has blessed both the parish and myself personally in abundance. The first woman that asked me to sponsor her made me consider: is underwriting her professional training a good use of parish funds? I decided that it did, and since then I’ve never doubted that funding NFP training is an excellent use of both parish and personal money.

Among the many ways NFP professionals build up a parish, I will mention just three. First, and most obviously, they make it possible to require engaged couples to learn the basics of Natural Family Planning. Second, they support marriage and family life beyond their formal teaching apostolate. And third, they deepen their priests’ understanding of the married vocation.

You’ve probably heard that couples that do not contracept are ten times more likely to stay married, and to stay married happily, than couples that contracept. One of the most precious gifts a priest can give his engaged couples, therefore, is to teach them about God’s great gift of procreation. Only NFP professionals can deliver that gift. A professionally trained and certified instructor wins the respect and gains the confidence of couples who have heard nothing but jokes about “grandma’s rhythm method.” All of the NFP instructors I’ve worked with deliver the science with an understanding love for their students, modeling not only joyful families but loving submission to God’s will. The NFP requirement for marriage preparation is essential, and possible, thanks to our NFP professionals. CANFP, in particular, provides the professional networking that enables priests to consult and locate instructors to anchor his training program.

But NFP professionals do much more for a parish than providing formal instruction. Most of them are married with children of their own and so model the joy of following God’s will for marriage and sexuality in real time. Their families inspire priests and people alike by attending Sunday Masses together, the little ones devoutly (most of the time!) following the sacred liturgy. Their flocks of bright-eyed children often romp about after Mass and serve actively in parish apostolates as they grow older, giving hope to the whole community. NFP professionals and their spouses support newly-married couples not only with fertility issues, but also with relationship building, family finance management, parenting, choosing a school, and every other aspect of married life. NFP professionals serve as irreplaceable mentors to married couples and single people alike.

“Many a priest has become NFP-friendly because a friendly NFP professional won them over.”

Finally, NFP instructors form our priests. They provide what most clergy did not get in the seminary, both in terms of basic information and personal witness. Many a priest has become NFP-friendly because a friendly NFP professional won them over. Early in my priesthood, an NFP instructor convinced me to take the course along with my engaged couples. These four sessions not only helped me understand the spirituality and theological foundations for Natural Family Planning, but they gave me a deeper reverence for my own couples. Now I can say, as I inform engaged couples of the NFP course requirement, “I wouldn’t ask you to do something I wouldn’t do myself!” Another NFP practitioner convinced me to attend the Couple to Couple League clergy conference in Cincinnati with a brother priest. It gave me not only a more precise understanding of the science, but also solidarity with other priests who are committed to the Church’s saving truths.

CANFP provides seminars for both priests and seminarians, many of which I’ve attended and some of which I’ve taught. I thank those bishops who invite CANFP professionals to give summer seminars to their men in formation, who are particularly open-minded. Seminary students often express their heartfelt gratitude to the CANFP doctors, priests, and other professionals after a week of training.

NFP professionals render many other blessings to a parish, formed as they are in trusting God day by day with their fertility. They generally model a serene submission to God’s providence; they pray more from the heart; they seem to have more courage in the face of life’s challenges. And, as Janet Smith noted some years ago, NFP couples tend to tithe! What pastor would not want a whole parish of NFP couples?