Family Life

Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week: July 20-26, 2008

Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week is a national educational campaign to further awareness about NFP and its benefits for marriage. NFP is not family planning per se; rather, it is a way of fertility awareness that helps married couples understand the gift of their fertility, and can help them to have children, or, with prayerful discernment, to postpone childbearing temporarily. It is a way of speaking the truth of committed love with one’s whole body, and the openness that it engenders has a way of fostering respect and love throughout the family.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) develops a poster each year about NFP, along with other educational materials. Individual dioceses and parishes are encouraged to share the good news about NFP and to promote its understanding among parishioners.

Dioceses and parishes can easily download materials for the promotion of NFP at the following link: http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp/nfpweek/index.shtml

On that webpage, there are further links for the following downloadable materials:

* Current NFP Poster
* NFP-related Liturgy & Prayers (Suggestions for priests’ homilies, and prayers of the faithful)
* Articles about NFP
* Couples' witness stories about NFP in their lives
* Church teachings about NFP

The dates of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week highlight the anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (July 25) which articulates Catholic beliefs about human sexuality, conjugal love and responsible parenthood. The dates also mark the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne (July 26), the parents of the Blessed Mother. For further information, contact nfp@usccb.org (USCCB NFP dept.) or tseyfer@adphila.org (Arch. of Phila. NFP Apostolate).

Recognizing that, "the future of humanity passes by way of the Family," (On The Family, John Paul II, #86), the Family Life Office participates in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's mission of building the Kingdom of God in its commitment to "create and nurture Christian community in the domestic church of the family."

    Staff
    Dominic Lombardi, M.A., S.T.L., Director
    Ann Hanincik, M.T.S., Administrator, Marriage Preparation Programs
    Tara Seyfer, M.T.S., Administrator, Natural Family Planning
    Lisann Castagno, Coordinator, Natural Family Planning
    Laura Ford, M.S., Administrator, Prison Ministry Program
    Rev. Gregory Cozzubbo, C. M., Catholic Prison Chaplain