Priestly Formation and the Teaching of NFP in a Seminary

When St. John Paul II was a young priest working with young adults and couples, he “learned to love human love” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 123). From the pulpit and the confessional, at their homes and also hiking, he accompanied couples in their path of holiness. Priestly formation at a seminary is called to generate men who learn to love human love, and commit themselves to the service of fair love, as Fr. Wojtyla did. An important dimension of this mission is the teaching of Natural Family Planning.

In 2020 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s birth, and secondarily, the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Directives of the Congregation for Catholic Education about “Forming Seminarians for Ministry to Marriage and Family”. These two celebrations invite us to consider that every catholic priest is called to become a servant of the beauty of the family.

Why should a seminarian spend time learning NFP, when he has so many important philosophical and theological topics to study and discuss? It is not something he will have to use nor does it belong to his daily life. Similarly, Marriage preparation does not include explanations on how to celebrate the Mass or to hear confessions. Maybe we could concede that NFP be offered as something optional for those interested in more, for seminarians with a special charism for families. Some could also object that it could be immodest to have a couple or a priest teach these things to seminarians, since they could stimulate their imagination and cause them some trouble.

In order to overcome these objections, we need to solve a key misunderstanding. Teaching NFP can only be understood and appreciated as belonging to something greater: to proclaim the newness and beauty of the divine truth about the family. The tragedy of contraception, denounced by St. Paul VI, is not just the problem of a rule that is being neglected. Reading Humanae Vitae from the perspective of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, we understand that the discussion between contraception and NFP is not about a particular law, but about a completely different vision of man, love and sexuality.

In this way, we can overcome another objection related to the novelty of NFP. Why was it not taught before? Why now? With respect to the past, the tasks awaiting future priests in the field of marriage and family ministry are much more delicate, demanding and complex. Some challenges are new and difficult, others remain the same, but seminarians arrive to formation with less experience of “normal” family life, more wounds and difficulty to live and to love human love. Learning NFP within the context of the vocation to love and holiness will greatly help the seminarians not only for their future mission but especially for their identity and communion with Christ. Therefore, NFP is not a personal choice for some priests who want to be focused on families: It is necessary for all priests, who as members of a family are called to love, and who need to make the family “the first and the most important way of their ministry” (Directives, 12; cf. Saint John Paul II, Letter to Families, 2)

But how much knowledge of NFP is necessary for priestly formation? Seminarians do not need to become trained instructors or experts in the topic, but they need to learn its difficulties, challenges and complications. To embrace marriage with openness to the gift of life is tough. Seminarians need to hear the testimonies of the struggles of couples in order to avoid a romantic and idyllic vision which may make them rigid and too severe, and so be understanding and merciful in the future. If they are called to accompany, encourage, and challenge the couples, they need to acquire an accurate knowledge of the beauty and challenges of NFP. They will not be able to propose it and accompany couples unless they know that it works, how it works, and what are its complications. What is at stake here is the ability of priests to offer a path and accompany families in their struggles, which is at the heart of their mission as spiritual fathers.

What really matters here is not how much NFP they learn, but what for. Instead of pure methods and facts, seminarians need to understand that what is at stake is the beauty of human love which depends on chastity, a virtue incumbent on all Christians. By encouraging the couples to follow God’s plan of human love, be always chaste and, when necessary periodically continent, priests help their flock to embrace the spousal meaning of their bodies. Couples need help to keep the celebrative meaning of their union. The priest can help them to talk about periodical unions, rather than periodical continence. Their conjugal union is a celebration that needs preparation and cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, NFP is not just a technique to abide by the law and avoid too many children (just “a Catholic kind of contraception”). Rather, it should be understood as the wisdom of God’s love which asks a couple to change their sexual habits, in order to keep beautiful their love. It will be a matter of virtue, not of duty, of sexual integration, not of repression, of molding the desires and the imagination, not of ignoring them. The virtue of chastity will open the path of sacrificial love. Otherwise, the struggles of NFP will generate frustration and resentment in the couple.

Only through understanding NFP as the safeguard of the beauty of love, will the seminarian avoid laxism and rigorism, and offer a demanding yet merciful path. He is not called to be a rigid preacher of old prohibitions, nor a weak grandfather, always avoiding confrontation and sugarcoating the Gospel. Instead of this, a pastoral and realistic proposal of NFP is necessary. The key of this realism will come from the mystery of Christ’s redemption, where we discover “the concrete possibilities of man.” The real man is not the man dominated by lust, but the one redeemed by Christ (cf. Veritatis Splendor, 103). The grace of the sacrament of marriage – conjugal charity –introduces the spouses into a greater measure, the divine measure of human love.

Aware of this grace, the priest wants to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. As shepherd of the flock, he wants to teach the whole Church’s teaching on sexuality. It will not be a matter of rules but of the love of God in them. The pastoral charity of the priest will illumine and strengthen the conjugal charity of the spouses. “Refusal to compromise anything concerning the saving doctrine of Christ is an outstanding act of charity to souls” (Humanae Vitae, 29). By not remaining silent, but by preaching and teaching the truth, the priests will proclaim the divine project on human love. The best message about sexuality – the “Theology of the Body” – is frequently the last one to arrive and the least taught to the Catholic youth. Paradoxically, we have the most beautiful truth about our bodies, and we are ashamed and afraid of proclaiming it. When teaching NFP, it is necessary to remind seminarians of St. John Paul II’s deep intuition about the youth: “Young people want their love to be beautiful… They are willing to follow Christ, without caring about the sacrifices this may entail” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 123). Jesus has a word about sex. It is a challenging word, but it is the one the youth want and need to hear. They will be ready to make sacrifices if they understand how precious true love is.

To teach the truth of marriage, like St. John Baptist, means to be ready to suffer for Christ, the Spouse of the Church. How can the priest ask the spouses to embrace such sacrificial love without him being transformed and encouraged? Learning NFP is not just a good tool for the seminarian’s future ministry with couples. Rather, it is something that challenges his own understanding as a man and as a priest. By reminding couples about their great vocation, we not only benefit them and help them to be saints, but we are transformed and illumined in our identity. Let´s put it this way: NFP is taught in a seminary first of all for the seminarians’ growth, and secondly, for the couples’ sake. By learning it, priests become not just better servants of the family, but more importantly, better men. NFP teaches them that the sexual and fertile body has different rhythms and phases which need to be embraced and accepted in order to generate truthful love. By remembering the sacrifices of the spouses in their daily life, priests are encouraged to respect the nuptial meaning of their own body (cf. Pastores dabo vobis, 44).

When the seminarian learns to love human love, like Fr. Wojtyla, he is able to establish a covenant of vocations with married couples. He is strengthened in his priestly vocation, not by reducing the beauty of marriage but rather by enhancing it and by serving it. As he becomes a priest for the family, parishioners and families around him come to appreciate the gift of priesthood and religious life. From here arises a profound and reciprocal admiration. The priest will grow in wonder and consider the married couples not only the object but also the acting subject of apostolic endeavor (Directives, 36). As servant of their joy, he will remind them of the loftiness of their vocation, especially regarding fruitfulness, and the cross that comes with it. When they are blessed with fertility, he will help them overcome the temptations of contraception, sterilization, and even abortion; when they are challenged with lack of children/infertility, he will accompany them and unmask the temptation of IVF Considering the sufferings of the spouses, he will ponder the priestly cross of solitude, proper to celibacy and virginity. Like the spouses, the priest is also called to keep united the unitive and procreative dimensions of his love. Otherwise he will become a bureaucrat or an activist minister. Giving the priority to prayer, he will be ready to give himself for his flock.

Pastors have great resources at their disposal at the parish and must take the initiative to promote a culture of the family. They need to preach with full confidence, certain that the Holy Spirit will illumine the hearts of the faithful (cf. Humanae Vitae, 29). The seminary is the place where these courageous shepherds are formed. There, in the place where the seed grows, they can imagine how they will preach the “Gospel of the family” from the pulpit, the confessional, the catechesis, the school… and how they will promote the culture of life, forming NFP instructors, counselors, and in many different ways… By studying NFP and Theology of the Body, the seminarian understands that to announce the Gospel of life requires the conversion of the heart of the priest. He needs to be ready to pray constantly for his people, accompany and listen to the spouses, remain always available for confessions, answer their questions and encourage them in their struggles. If he proclaims the whole Gospel, not just part of it, he needs to give his whole heart to the mission, not only part of it. “This is my body which will be given up for you” (Lk 22:19).