Natural Family Planning International

The Couple to Couple League vs the Kippleys

On May 27, 2008 a CCL teacher, speaking only for herself and not CCL, blogged about new CCL teachings. She mentioned the Kippleys break from CCL and said “I know that a lawsuit with the Kippleys settled in 2007.”
   It is true that there was a Settlement Agreement between CCL and the Kippleys, and it occurred in May 2006, not 2007.
   Currently, the Kippleys and CCL are engaged in a new dispute stemming from CCL’s allegation that the Kippleys have violated the Settlement Agreement.
   We believe their claims are without merit and have retained a lawyer.  This conflict is leading to arbitration in November.
   We want to make it clear that none of the NFPI contributions are being used in this conflict. Keep us in your prayers.
   John and Sheila Kippley

’Tis the season to be thankful.  In keeping with the season, we would like to give special thanks to Dr. Konald A. Prem.            

Our first knowledge of natural family planning came from a poor understanding of the rhythm method.  As a high-school student, I played tennis with a woman in her late twenties who was getting married in the Catholic Church.  She was informed by the priest that she and her future husband could use the rhythm method only if they had a serious reason to do so, that this method involved abstaining about a week in the middle of the cycle and, if you had a really serious to avoid pregnancy, you abstained for two weeks in the middle of the cycle.  That was not the rhythm method and I hope no one follows such advice today.  That was also John’s understanding of the rhythm method when we entered into marriage: that if you had a sufficiently serious reason for postponing pregnancy, you abstained a few days before and after Day 14 of the cycle.   After all, everyone ovulated around Day 14, or so it was commonly thought by those who thought they knew.  Again this knowledge was incorrect.  We learned the rhythm method correctly some years later.           

Our first accurate understanding of systematic natural family planning came from an article written by Dr. Konald Prem in a 1968 issue of Child & Family magazine.  Soon after reading that article we moved to Salina, Kansas where we publicized a meeting on natural family planning.  The only ones at that meeting who were enthusiastic about starting a group were La Leche League friends who knew nothing about systematic NFP.               

Two years later we moved to the Twin Cities where Dr. Prem lived.  I noticed that both he and I were scheduled to be on the same panel at the La Leche League Convention in the summer of 1971.  We called him and scheduled a meeting to discuss what each would cover on the topic of breastfeeding infertility at the upcoming convention.  But our primary purpose was to ask him about starting an organization to teach natural family planning to couples.             

I had been closely associated with La Leche League (LLL).  I had seen how the teaching of successful breastfeeding was spread by one ordinary mother teaching other mothers.  I had started the first LLL group in Saskatchewan.  Why couldn’t the same approach be applied to the teaching of natural family planning by ordinary couples?  Dr. Prem was 100% supportive of this idea. In fact, he was enthusiastic.  I remember him saying that he had been involved with other approaches through clinics and hospitals and these approaches eventually failed.             

We began our first class at St. Odilia’s school in the St. Paul suburbs, a few blocks from our apartment, in the fall of 1971.  We started with four meetings and the content of those meetings was very similar to what many couples learned through the years through the Couple to Couple League.  To this program John brought the covenant theology, I brought the eco-breastfeeding, and Dr. Prem brought systematic natural family planning.             

Dr. Prem also went beyond the call of duty by coming to every class that first year. Besides helping with the teaching, he reviewed the couples’ charts after class.  John especially used Dr. Prem’s knowledge to learn the method well.  John would say to Dr. Prem, “How did you know that couple was in Phase III tonight?”   I remember Dr. Prem’s response to a couple who doubted they were in Phase III: he assured them they were in Phase III and said that if they had a baby, he would deliver it without charging.             

For those interested in what materials we used to teach the classes, the visuals were us, a blackboard, and a single-page handout that the couples could take home with them.    Dr. Prem used a slide program with charts.  The mimeographed manual did not develop until after we moved to Cincinnati.  The couples learned well.           

A friend recently stated that she couldn’t understand all the trouble the current CCL is going through to make all its changes.  As she said, “It’s so simple.  Why change it?”  It was simple then and that is why couples learned it well.           

My thanks go to Dr. Konald Prem for encouraging us to start a national natural family planning organization and for his support of our teaching on the theology and the breastfeeding.             

Most do not know that Dr. Prem did research on the effectiveness of breastfeeding as a baby-spacer, but never published it.  I recently found a copy of his paper, and at present he is reviewing it.  We plan to eventually place it at our website.  We are also considering placing his Child & Family article at our website.             

John and I thank him for his attendance at those first NFP meetings and for his review of each new edition of the manual that we published.  There were others who helped by reviewing our work and we appreciate their help also.  We had a policy of always sending out the manual to various experts and teachers before publication, another effort at quality control.  Dr. Prem was always generous in giving of his time for this review work.           

Some may have wondered why we call our rules the Kippley-Prem rules in our teachings and at our website.  After reading this blog, I think you can begin to appreciate what Dr. Prem brought to the Couple to Couple League and now to Natural Family Planning International.             

Without his enthusiastic support of “let’s do it,” we probably would have never started CCL or NFPI.  Because of this doctor, about a half million couples have learned natural family planning, have enjoyed natural child spacing through breastfeeding, and have deepened their faith and their marriage.  Thank you, Dr. Prem.           

This January (2008) John and I will teach our first NFP classes for NFP International.  We will again start with simple visuals or power point.  We will be thinking of Dr. Prem as we begin again.               

Interestingly, Dr. Prem and my husband share the same birthday, November 6^th,   a time of the year when they make it a point to talk to each other.  Dr. Prem is now 87 years old.  May God bless him and his wife abundantly at this time in their lives.  And thanks, Dr. Prem, for your role in the natural family planning movement and in our lives and those of many others.  

 Sheila Kippley
NFP International
www.NFPandMore.org
Author: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia)
        Natural Family Planning:The Question-Answer Book (e-book
               at this website)             

“The loss of ecological breastfeeding in CCL is a more serious matter, because as far as I know, it is only yourselves and the old CCL who have promoted it systematically.  I know of no one else.”  a veteran NFP teacher in an email November 10 responding to the new CCL teaching program

The appeal continues from last week because of the serious need for donations.  Please share this appeal with others.   The appeal below is the same as last week.    Next week Sheila comments on the new CCL Student NFP manual.

Last year at this time, John was in California undergoing treatment for prostate cancer at the Loma Linda University Medical Center. This place has been the leader in a form of radiation called the proton beam therapy. As you may know, almost all the various treatments have very high success rates in curing prostate cancer, but most of them also have some undesirable side effects such as urinary incontinence and sexual impotence to one degree or another. Proton beam therapy has almost none of the first and a relatively small amount of the latter. Since almost everyone of those being treated was spared the inconvenience of wearing diapers, they were grateful. It was common to hear the guys talking about doing something by way of giving back to the institution that helped them.

NFP International needs that sort of “giving back” spirit among those who have been helped by our work over the past 36 years. We, John and Sheila Kippley, are not asking for any financial support for ourselves. We live adequately on Social Security for the most part, and we are happy to be 100% volunteers for NFPI. We just hope that people who have been helped by us in past years or recently will want to give back to NFPI in order to maintain and significantly expand our current level of service. And just what sort of service does NFPI render?

The website. We opened the NFPI website, www.nfpandmore.org, in 2005 with the intention of making it the “go to” website for Natural Family Planning. We have made significant strides toward that goal but we certainly have much more to do.

● Our online manual, Natural Family Planning: The Question-Answer Book, is for self-instruction. It is short, easy reading and free. Most NFP websites promote their NFP course. There’s nothing wrong with that, but many couples can learn very well from our manual. It is far more complete than the material from which we first learned the STM, and users can and do contact us for additional free help via email and phone. You can download a free STM chart from the Home Page.

● The Triple Strand approach to NFP. We founded the Couple to Couple League in 1971 with a unique approach to Natural Family Planning instruction. It was a combination of Ecological Breastfeeding as a form of NFP, the simple and easy-to-grasp covenant theology of sexuality, and a version of Systematic NFP that emphasized the Sympto-Thermal Method but let couples know about other approaches. Within the STM we developed different rules for distinctly different situations. In our opinion, it is unfortunate that the current management of CCL has changed the content of the Triple Strand while continuing to use the label. NFPI continues the original Triple Strand tradition.

● The website section carries articles and research related to NFP and the culture. More work remains to be done, and it is a continuing project.

● Support for Catholic teaching about love, marriage and sexuality is provided in a series of articles dating back to John’s 1971 article in the liberal journal, Theological Studies. “Continued Dissent: Is It Responsible Loyalty?” showed that the decision-making principles of arch-dissenter Fr. Charles Curran could not say a firm NO even to spouse-swapping. It brought exactly zero response from the dissenters, a clear signal that the article was right on the mark. Students doing research on the so-called birth control debate should read it. The talk John gave on Saturday, October 27, was well received at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. Titled, “The Sexual Revolution: A Half-Millennium of Regression,” it will soon be posted on our website. Every high-school and college student should read it.

● The blogs provide commentary on current events or topics. They are time-consuming to write but apparently are helpful. Site visits have increased considerably since we started them. We greatly appreciate you and our other readers.

Support for Eastern Europe. This is a very important part of the NFP International apostolate. We fund the salary of a full-time family man working for NFP in Slovakia, and we are very pleased with his work. How many people in the entire world are visiting priests and trying to visit bishops to gently prod them to do what they should be doing to teach marital chastity? We assure you that what he is doing could not be done just with volunteers. With sufficient resources, we hope to duplicate this effort all throughout Europe as well as in the United States.

New classroom teaching program. Some NFP teachers who have enthusiastically taught the traditional Triple Strand content have become disappointed with the changes at CCL, and they’ve asked us to develop a new classroom teaching program based on the content of our online manual. We’re hoping to have this ready early in 2008.

Please pray for the work of NFPI. Yes, we know that you get so many requests for prayers that you can’t remember all of them without making an ever lengthening list. Still, we ask because our mutual prayers are part of God’s Providence for making good things happen. Please pray that thousands of people will visit our website and make good use of the materials there. Please pray that we will develop a truly excellent classroom teaching program that will be used all throughout the United States as well as internationally.

Please pray about helping us financially. Please consider the importance of this NFP apostolate. First, we promote and teach the truth about human sexuality. Is that important? If you read the crime reports in your daily paper, you may notice that most of the crimes of child abuse, domestic violence, and the crimes of young people have a common theme—family breakdown. If there’s a man in the house, he’s not the real father of the child who is in the papers. Marital chastity increasingly isn’t recognized as an ideal or a norm. This is part of the sexual revolution that started with the acceptance of the idea that modern man can take apart what God has put together—marriage-wise and sex-wise.

We are doing what we can on a shoestring. With your help we can do much, much more. Have you or any of your loved ones ever been helped by our work either recently through NFPI or in the past through our previous organization? Do you have any confidence in us based on our record over the past 36 years? Are you ready to give back? We are volunteers, and the couples helping us with the new program are volunteers. But we do need funds for Slovakia, for the website, for promotion, for a printed manual, and for incidental expenses. As founders, we are limited by the IRS as to how much we can give. Please give it prayerful thought.

Please help us financially. After your prayerful thought, we hope that you will want to see the efforts of NFP International continue and increase. We hope you will want to give all that you can. $1,000. $500 $250 $100 $50 $25 $10. NFP International is a registered not-for-profit organization, and all donations to NFPI are tax-deductible. If you want to make regular automatic gifts, we will provide the bank information.

Double your money. A major donor has offered to match all donations in November and December up to a total of $15,000. Please join this effort to help NFP International.

Help spread the word about breastfeeding. We would like to give our donors up to 45 of our new breastfeeding brochure for all donations of $50.00 or more. These brochures are great for promoting breastfeeding in your church and community. Let us know how many you can use—5, 10, 20, 30 or up to 45. You can view and download the brochure at our website, www.nfpandmore.org.

How to donate. Please make checks payable to NFP International or just NFPI and mail them to:
                        NFP International
                        P. O. Box 11216
                        Cincinnati, OH 45211

Be sure to let us know how many brochures you can use and give us your mailing address. (Only the white mother-baby image is printed at this time.)

May God continue to bless you and your family, and may He bless you in a special way for your help to bring about a rebirth of chastity, a stop to contraception and abortion, and a culture of life.

Sincerely in the Lord,

John and Sheila Kippley
Founders, NFP International Inc.

P.S. Please share this blog with family and friends and clergy. Many thanks!