When I was engaged, I remember seeing questions like “Isn’t Natural Family Planning (NFP) just Catholic birth control?” pop up in online Catholic forums. These questions would often cause me to wonder about the same because I didn’t have a very good answer myself. How could a method be healthy, natural, and moral for Catholic couples to use in their marriage for family planning?
The more I learned and had conversations with my spiritual director, I realized that definitions weren’t clear and conversations around NFP were so focused on charting and abstaining, I wasn’t seeing the ways in which it challenged couples in virtue building and deeper spiritual growth.