“In my 30 years in Brazil, I saw many promising apostolates rise—and then fall as they abandoned the charisms of their founders.” Bishop Karl Jozef Romer, Pontifical Council for the Family, 2002 CCL Convention.
“Quotation” Background
This quotation from Bishop Karl Jozef Romer stands out for us as one of the memorable events of the year 2002. The bi-annual convention of the Couple to Couple League (CCL) was in Oklahoma that year. Bishop Romer was standing in for Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, who had graced these conventions previously but could not make it to this one. For reasons known only to him, Bishop Romer wanted the leadership of CCL to benefit from his previous experience and spoke as he did.
Background
For those not acquainted with our work, suffice it to say that we, John and Sheila Kippley, founded CCL in 1971, developed the program, raised the funds, and managed or helped to direct the organization for 32 years until December 2003. In that time CCL went from ground zero to having teaching chapters throughout the United States and at least minimally in over 20 countries and recognized as one of the nation’s leading NFP organizations. In 2004, we founded NFP International to carry on our apostolate.
Three principal charisms
Bishop Romer’s remarks got us thinking—what are the charisms we brought to the League? We soon realized there were three main charisms or gifts or insights that we had brought to CCL.
1) Advocacy of ecological breastfeeding as a form of natural family planning.
2) Use of the covenant theology of sexuality to uphold Catholic moral teaching about birth control.
3) Teaching a flexible version of the Sympto-Thermal Method that uses multiple fertility signs and offers several options for determining the limits of the fertile time.
We refer to these characteristics as the Triple Strand approach to Natural Family Planning (NFP).
Since 2005 CCL has spoken about the changes in their upcoming teaching program, but the details were not laid out at first. Gradually, through the 2006 CCL Convention talks, television, internet blogs, Family Foundations, training materials, conversations, responses to questions, etc., we came to understand that CCL is keeping the terminology of the “Triple Strand” approach to NFP, but significantly changing the content of all three charisms that we brought to the original CCL in 1971. What has become public will be discussed in our blog.
Why a blog?
The idea came from our professional web person who strongly encouraged us to blog. We will comment on what is going on in the natural family planning movement and certain aspects of our culture. John will look for opportunities to support Church teaching, especially when it pertains to marriage and sexuality. Sheila hopes to promote breastfeeding, especially eco-breastfeeding (short for ecological breastfeeding), and to offer more support to those mothers who choose to stay home.
We will comment on the changes occurring at CCL, an organization we hope will reconsider the direction it is taking. We fear that if CCL abandons the charisms of its founders, it will meet the fate of other organizations observed by Bishop Romer.
We will probably blog weekly, and we welcome your comments. Please include your full name. We will honor requests to be published anonymously.
John and Sheila Kippley
NFP International
Authors: Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood (Sophia, 2005)
Sex and the Marriage Covenant (Ignatius, 2005)
Natural Family Planning: Question-Answer Book (e-book at this website, 2005)
Welcome to the Blogosphere, John and Sheila!
Honored to be notified, we’re with you as you started CCL and still think you have it all together. Praying this new venture flourishes and helps many.
Hello!
So glad to see you blogging!
Thanks for letting us know that we regularly will be able to hear more from you. We’re glad to know about your blog. Hopefully more people now will be helped by your counsel and wisdom, embracing the beautiful vision you present of marriage and family life.
I’m glad to see you blogging. Sheila, I’m afraid we’re going to leave the natural mothering and eco breastfeeding behind. Seems it’s not a part of this “new” generation. I’m seeing the same thing happen to my other favorite organization-LLL. I’m very sad.
Sheila & John,
Your leadership is a great plus for our culture and Church.
I consider EBF (Ecological Breast Feeding) to be the ONLY really NATURAL family planning method. It seems to me that EBF is God’s preferred approach to family “planning” since it is based on total trust in GOD and His perfect design for our bodies. Since EBF requires no abstinence, it seems to me to be most compatible with the married state.
May God always bless you and your work.
Steve Koob
Great first post! It’s an interesting discussion, especially from the perspective of an “outsider” (someone who is completely new to NFP). I’m looking forward to reading more.
Welcome to the blogosphere. I look forward to your insights about NFP and especially breastfeeding. Thanks for stopping by my small blog and leaving a comment.
I am eternally grateful to the Kippleys for opening my eyes to the best things in life. I thank you, my husband thanks you, my 6 children thank you! Without your support I never would have listened to my heart and nursed my babies as long as I did. We are all better off because of you wonderful and brave people.
How exciting! I am so grateful you have hung in there through all the trials and troubles. Surely, truth has set you free!
May God bless you and all who come in contact with your information,
Gerry
What a well-timed entrance into the dialogue of the blogosphere! As is the timing of the Holy Spirit…always. For years my husband and I have watched with much interest the development of the world and thought of NFP. The striking difference in delivery of the message between diocesean and CCL programs is troubling, yet intriguing. The truth is often only revealed in the difference, as is witnessed in the many assorted interpretations of what God’s will is for procreation and what the church truly teaches. This dialogue is so essential as we enter a “springtime” of understanding human sexuality and marriage. I am a second generation eco-breastfeeder, my husband a “providentialist” and although we have been trained in the use of NFP, find that spiritually, only the breastfeeding keeps us in tune with the will of God. We acknowledge that there are some people for whom breastfeeding is problematic, and how wonderful that we have the gift of understanding our fertility for those who truly need it. We heed JPII’s call for all couples to understand their fertility, and have trouble with the phraseology “planning.” But more on that sometime! I can’t wait to dialogue with you, John and Sheila! God be with you!
I’m so glad that you will be writing this blog. I don’t usually read blogs but heard that you were starting this one and came to read it.
The Holy Spirit moved me to buy your Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing book last year after the birth of my first daughter and it completed the “re-conversion” of my heart that had been on-going since becoming pregnant and reading Kimberly Hahn’s Life Giving Love book. I abandoned my half-hearted plans to return to work – so that my education didn’t go to “waste”. I can’t describe how much more fulfilled and happy I am now in devoting myself to my motherly vocation. I plunged right into eco-breastfeeding without a look back, and we’ve been going strong for almost 16 months now.
I just wanted to let you know what a tremendous impact your work has had on my life and how thankful I am for the new direction that my life has taken – due in no small part to your insight and words. I look forward to reading more!
Why did you censor my previous post?
John and Sheila: Your post was not your personal comment but merely a section from a generic article, published three years ago, about relationships between founders and organizations. That was not the subject of the blog, and we believe the article is not relevant to our situation.
I gradually learned the value of breastfeeding before we took the classes in NFP after the birth of our sixth child. I only wished we’d learned all of what we learned from CCL before we married. Belated thanks for what you put together. I totally agree that the three pillars you identified need to be kept together.
John and Sheila: Your experience supports our conviction that ecological breastfeeding and the Seven Standards should be promoted and taught AS A FORM OF NFP; and 2) that this promotion and teaching ought to take place in the regular NFP course. Our experience with special courses or classes for premenopausal couples, for example, showed very poor attendance.
Hmmm, are you really still hoping to have a positive impact on the world through NFP? I can’t help but be saddened by your comments. It’s tough enough to spread the gospel with NFP, much less when you have founders of an NFP organization continuing to try dividing our laborers. Humility is a great virtue to cultivate. Is your public defensiveness and attack on the current CCL really the way the saints, or for that matter Jesus himself would have reacted to such a situation? Did a spiritual director realy give you the blessing for such an egocentric, divisive article?
John and Sheila: From comments we have received on various issues over the past year from CCL volunteers, we sense that serious divisions already exist. We are addressing only the “Triple Strand” issue at the present time in the hope that CCL management will reconsider its plans. We hope for reconciliation; nothing is to be gained by silence.
By the way, when we first explained the situation to a spiritual advisor three years ago, this good priest suggested we hire a “mad dog lawyer who would go for the jugular.” We declined and decided to try to thread the needle. With regard to Jesus, if you listened to the gospel readings in the last weeks of Lent, you might agree that his style in dealing with the Jewish authorities was not exactly non-confrontational.
Suzy mentions ‘times are changing’ and the shift away from the things of natural. I see it every day. I am sad for the women and men making these choices based on a world gone mad and slipping so far away from God. They are not even aware of the loss. And, I too notice it even in those places where before I felt I was safe….
I find it so hard to explain to people my large family and that I do not consider it a burden but a gift. I have been pregnant, breastfeeding or both for 21 years now. I am probably going to enter the perimenopause years with a child still at the breast.
I remember when I read Our Beloved John Paul II inspiring words and finally understood the depths of human sexuality and why it was so sad and wrong to not hold tight to your sexuality until your marriage. I have used this new understanding to teach my children. How different my life may have been if only I had been Catholic in my youth and been taught the beauty of sexuality and not the sin. It is the beauty of the life possible that changes everything.
I am saddened to see changes to CCL as it is where I first learned much of what I know of my fertility. However, I am pleased that the Truth is being kept clear and offered elsewhere.
God bless you always.