Natural Family Planning Awareness Week

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week is celebrated each July to help people better understand Natural Family Planning (NFP) and how it can aid a married couple in their desire to either have a child or postpone a pregnancy. By understanding the scientific signs of fertility and infertility, a married couple can better cooperate with God’s plan for their marriage. Natural Family Planning fosters authentic marital love, respect, honesty, and couple communication. It also fosters trust in God and an authentic marital spirituality that deepens the couple's relationship with Christ and his Church.

In 2025, Natural Family Planning Awareness Week is being celebrated July 20-26. This year's theme is "Pursue a Lasting Love." The Lord God calls us to love him and each other as he loves us. In marriage, this takes on a unique quality as the husband and wife unite to build a family.

There are sometimes misconceptions about NFP, but modern methods have been proven to be highly effective. NFP is not contraception because it does nothing to alter or block the body’s natural rhythms of fertility. Instead, NFP relies on scientifically proven methods of tracking a woman’s menstrual cycle so that a couple can make an informed decision guided by faith and reason. It can be used to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Chastity is an essential element in NFP as spouses embrace God’s design for marital love. That is because couples using NFP who wish to postpone or avoid pregnancy engage in periodic sexual abstinence. In this way, the couple does nothing to harm God’s design of love and life. They simply abstain from the marital embrace during their time of fertility. Couples who wish to become pregnant can also use NFP to increase their chances of success. Using NFP methods to identify peak fertility has been scientifically proven to significantly increase a couple's likelihood of conceiving a child.

A Message from Bishop James Ruggieri for Natural Family Planning Awareness Week

This week purposefully includes the anniversary of the publication of St. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, “On the Regulation of Birth” (given on July 25, 1968). In this letter, St. Pope Paul VI reiterated the Church’s teaching that artificial birth control, contraception, violates the integrity of marital sexual intercourse. His letter was greeted with praise and scorn. The wisdom of the Spirit guided him to promote truth and speak prophetically. The truth is that the marital act of sexual intercourse is created for two natural goods: the deepening of the union of the spouses who delight in the act of marital intercourse and the procreation of children. The prophetic pronouncement about artificial birth control is found in section 17 of the letter. Here, the pope stated that artificial birth control opens a “wide and easy” road to marital infidelity and “the general lowering of morality.” Also, he said that due to contraception, men and women may fall prey to the temptation to use each other as objects for pleasure, and civil authorities may impose artificial birth control upon their people for population control and manipulation. Sadly, all these results, which were proposed as real consequences of the use of artificial birth control in 1968, have become realities.

This week also allows us as a local Church to pray for our married couples and all families. The vocation of marriage is foundational to the Church. Let us commend all married couples and families to the loving intercession and care of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.