Spreading the Good News by Lynn Keenan, MD
I had the privilege of representing CANFP members and supporters, speaking to over 1200 high school teachers throughout the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on a five day tour that covered three counties. As part of a four year cycle of faith formation, Dr. Janet Smith and I participated in the third year of the cycle dedicated to discussions on morality. She presented her famous talk on Contraception, Why Not?, and I followed with the comparison of the health effects of contraception and natural family planning. The mornings were spent at various high schools addressing teachers, and the evening talks were with priests, deacons, seminarians and NFP teachers. Although the topic was chosen several years prior by Msgr. Sal Pilato, Superintendent of High Schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the timing with the HHS mandate was clearly providential.
Many of the people I met gave inspiring witnesses of the blessings of natural family planning. I was most touched by the number of faithful devout husbands who shared some of their journey with NFP. These were strong, manly men who stood up for the truth of this teaching. One gentleman asked where to find a local teacher to learn a natural family planning method, and two of his teacher colleagues, who were also waiting in line with a question, began planning to find a class that they could all attend together with their wives.
The seminarians were delightful in their engagement in the group discussions in the evenings, and inspire so much hope for the future.
The gentleman that deserves the credit for this important week of education and witness—a week with such potential to impact generations to come—is Msgr. Pilato. Msgr. is a very quiet, humble man who shepherds his flock with love, whether convenient or inconvenient. He knew this topic was controversial in these crowds and that many would disagree. In fact four of the private Catholic schools that were invited suddenly dropped out of the faith formation day when they heard the topic. But he is a brave, holy man, with a great spine. For years, many in the California NFP community have been talking about getting NFP promoted in the high schools. He is the first to do it on such a grand scale. Thank you Monsignor Pilato – you are a hero to many.
