Chapter 1 of our NFP manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach, is a New Evangelization effort. Section 6 of that chapter is titled, “The Bible and Church teaching on contraception.” There we present biblical teachings, a short statement on the Theology of the Body, and an even shorter statement of the covenant theology. After quoting Humanae Vitae n. 14, we provide a list of behaviors that seek to render procreation impossible. Included in that list are masturbation, whether mutual or solitary, and “marital sodomy, (anal sex or oral sex).” Then we ask: “Why do we mention masturbation and marital sodomy?” Our answer: “It’s because we listen and read. People have told us that at one time they were practicing their own form of NFP with masturbation during the fertile time….. We have read in the daily papers that in some parts of the United States about half of high school teenagers have experienced oral sex, that is, oral sodomy. It take no genius to figure out that if they somehow attend an NFP course and hear abstinence during the fertile time, they may start thinking in terms of their previous behavior unless they learn that it’s immoral. Chaste abstinence is the pregnancy-avoiding “method” of true systematic NFP.”
Unfortunately, what we teach is far more than what you will find in most of the other NFP programs. Some say nothing about morality and religion. It is just non-contraceptive birth control with a statement such as “avoid genital contact during the fertile time,” and that’s obviously open to a pragmatic, biology-only interpretation. Some do not include Church teaching because they believe the method they teach stands on its own merits as a method of birth control. In today’s culture, chaste abstinence must be taught.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant