Natural family planning is topic of this class

VIRGINIA BEACH

On a spring Sunday afternoon, two groups gathered at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church: scores of worshippers at Mass and seven adults there to learn about natural family planning.

"I know it took a special effort to come to a class like this, especially on a Sunday," instructor Jamie Walker said, before launching into a discussion of ovulation and the intricacies of human reproduction.

The gap in turnouts was an apt metaphor for the fact that birth control via natural family planning - that is, without contraceptives - is not popular among Catholics, or with the rest of the country.

"Below 3 percent nationally of women of reproductive age use NFP," said Theresa Notare, assistant director for the natural family planning program at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "In the church, I'd say it's more or less similar."

Catholic teaching forbids the use of artificial contraceptives. Despite that, many priests and parish leaders say little about natural family planning, Walker said.

"Even the church hasn't promoted it, I think because it's such a controversial subject for people," he said.

But the promotional lethargy is starting to lift in the Diocese of Richmond, which encompasses Hampton Roads.

Engaged couples must get natural family planning instruction as part of the diocese's new pre marital preparation for Catholic weddings.

The only thing holding things back is access to workshops, caused by a lack of trained instructors, said Jim Dyk, of the diocese's marriage formation office. Dyk and his wife, Sandy, oversee implementation of the process that was approved by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo in 2007. Dyk expects the shortfall in teachers to be filled by 2011.

But Jon O'Brien doubts the classes will be popular. He is president of Catholics for Choice, a national group that often disagrees with Catholic policies on sexual and reproductive health.

"This sounds like a lot of indoctrination that people maybe don't want and indoctrination about not having a choice," O'Brien said.

Getting Catholic couples to adopt natural family planning will depend on what they believe about basic questions: Does it work? Is it hard to use? Can someone be a faithful Catholic without using it?

O'Brien said Catholics' views on these questions are clear, "Catholic men and women have already voted with their feet - they're not using NFP because NFP doesn't work."

Walker said natural family planning does work - it's just that too few Catholics know about newer, science-backed methods. He's itching to tell classes that the church has junked the old, sometimes-scorned "rhythm method," in which a woman's past menstrual cycles were used in conjunction with mathematical calculations to predict the days she would not be fertile.

Walker also tells classes that contemporary family planning enhances communication between spouses, is healthier than contraceptive drugs or devices and is part of God's plan.

"It's simple fertility awareness. We teach the couple to know their own cycle, so they know which days are fertile," Walker said.

Older Catholics may recall Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae" - On Human Life - which said couples could sidestep pregnancy only by timing sex. Artificial birth control was prohibited.

Lay people and some theologians challenged the Vatican's stand, and flaws with the rhythm method vexed couples.

"So there was that feeling of, 'You want me to have as many kids as I can, and I can't do that,' and there was tremendous dissent," said the Rev. Joseph M. Biber of St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in Virginia Beach.

It was Pope John Paul II who developed a theology of the body that explains how natural family planning fit into God's plan, said Biber, who serves on the Richmond diocese's pre marital reorganization commission. In particular, John Paul II said there was an "inseparable connection" between the stronger bonds a couple builds and sexual intercourse's procreative potential.

If the creative possibility is deleted by contraceptives, sex is only a union of bodies and not a communion of man and wife at the deepest level, the pope said. "The conjugal act... ceases also to be an act of love," he wrote.

To Biber, John Paul II offered "what is the meaning of our fertility, our bodies, our sexuality, for the first time in a very positive way."

Biber said natural family planning was a good antidote for couples whose attitude toward sex is skewed by TV shows such as "Sex and the City."

"You jump in the sack, and where do you go from there? You're separated from a real genuine intimacy that has to be built up step by step," he said.

Intimacy and lasting marriages are a big goal of the diocese's pre marital process. Along with natural family planning classes, couples will complete educational programs giving practical pointers on married life and personal inventories revealing attitudes on topics including finances and raising children.

Cathy Goeke, a Norfolk Catholic, was ready to follow church teaching when she married in 1984 and started the rhythm method. She was sure her cycles were regular.

"We actually planned my honeymoon around my cycles. I didn't want to come home pregnant," Goeke said.

Instead, she was pregnant within three months of her marriage. She said she was thrilled to become a mother, but the experience left her dubious about natural family planning.

"If I were in the market to prevent a pregnancy, I'd use something a little more reliable, a condom or something," said Goeke, now 46 and the mother of three.

Stories like Goeke's hardly recommend natural family planning to couples seeking reliable birth control.

But advocates like Richard Fehring, director of Marquette University's College of Nursing Institute for Natural Family Planning, say the latest story is this: Newer natural methods succeed where the rhythm technique failed.

The Sympto-thermal Method, for example, tracks multiple symptoms including temperature, cervical mucus and menstrual cycle length to pinpoint fertile and safe periods.

Additionally, Marquette's Web site recommends using an in-home hormone monitoring device that tests a woman's urine to pinpoint fertile times.

It may have been retooled, but the new, improved natural family planning still hasn't entered the mainstream of a crucial group: medical providers. Fehring's studies of physicians and midwives show only 5 percent to 6 percent recommend natural family planning.

Most doctors aren't trained in it. And doctors, he said, are the gate keepers of the health information most people follow.

Helen Walker, Jamie's wife and fellow instructor, said she knew of no local Catholic doctors who advocate for the methods. She said most people learn of it by word of mouth.

Not that natural family planning comes up a lot. "It's not like it's something when you get together with your friends that it comes up, or even friends within your church community," said Lisa Kelly, a Catholic mother of two who was at the Walkers' recent session.

Notare said there can be a squeamishness about explicit conversations on sex.

"Cervical mucus and being taught how to do a cervical exam are part of the 'ick' factor," she said.

Kelly said she and her husband, Pat, had to "research, dig and find" resources on their own. (They found Walker listed in the St. Gregory's bulletin.)

"It's not like someone is standing up after the Sunday service and bringing this to your attention," she said. "No one is talking about it."

Walker, of course, is happy to talk about it. At this Sunday's two-hour tutorial, the ex-Navy man said his wife used an IUD early in their marriage on a doctor's advice. The couple switched to natural family planning over worries the device could hurt her health. Spirituality was a reason as well.

"We were on a journey, just like you," he told his class. "What is God calling us to do?"

Walker showed video clips of a doctor explaining human reproduction and a priest who explained the theological underpinnings. The nitty-gritty - how to perform the Sympto-Thermal Method - were from Walker's own experience and Powerpoint graphics.

Louella Dio, who came with her husband, Reuben, said she was encouraged by the tutorial.

"As my husband and I are learning more about how the body behaves and how clueless we may feel, we're growing closer to one another and laughing about it together," she said.

Dio, who has three children, said she was exploring natural family planning after bad side effects from oral and injected contraceptives and intense pain with an IUD. She also heard a priest call artificial birth control a mortal sin.

"It was then that I vowed to make right with God and honor that His will be done, instead of my own," said Dio, who lives in Virginia Beach.

Kelly, who's begun tracking her reproductive symptoms, said she thought natural family planning could strengthen communication with her husband.

There was no family planning education requirement when she married 16 years ago. Since then "I've tried to learn more about my faith... and, every time I turn around, this has been staring me in the face," she said. "It's a teaching of the church and, if you're not following it, there's a problem."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com