Natural Family Planning - Theological Debate

Theological Debate

Some Catholics have indicated significant disagreement with the Church's stance on contraception. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops issued what many interpreted as a dissenting document, the Winnipeg Statement. In it, the bishops recognized that many Catholics found it "either extremely difficult or even impossible to make their own all elements of this doctrine" (that of Humanae Vitae). Additionally, they reasserted the Catholic principle of primacy of conscience, a principle that they said should be properly interpreted, since they insisted that "a Catholic Christian is not free to form his conscience without consideration of the teaching of the magisterium, in the particular instance exercised by the Holy Father in an encyclical letter". Catholics for a Free Choice claimed in 1998 that 96% of U.S. Catholic women had used contraceptives at some point in their lives and that 72% of Catholics believed that one could be a good Catholic without obeying the Church's teaching on birth control. According to a nationwide poll of 2,242 U.S. adults surveyed online in September 2005 by Harris Interactive (they stated that the magnitude of errors cannot be estimated due to sampling errors, non-response, etc.), 90% of Catholics supported the use of birth control/contraceptives. Use of natural family planning methods among United States Catholics purportedly is low, although the number cannot be known with certainty. In 2002, 24% of the U.S. population identified as Catholic. But of sexually active Americans avoiding pregnancy, only 1.5% were using NFP.

Much criticism of NFP stems from the Church's stance of NFP as the only allowable form of birth control. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI asserted that handing out condoms is not the solution to combating AIDS and actually makes the problem worse. Some senior Catholic authorities, such as Belgian Cardinal Emeritus Godfried Danneels, believe the Catholic Church should support condoms used to prevent serious diseases such as AIDS, because non-use is tantamount to murder. In 2003, BBC's Panorama claimed that the Vatican is intentionally spreading lies that HIV can pass through the membrane of the condom.

Family planning proponent Stephen D. Mumford has argued that the primary motivation behind the Church's continued opposition to contraceptive use is the Church's fear of losing papal authority if the pope were to contradict the dogma of papal infallibility. Mumford gives as an example the citation made by August Bernhard Hasler of a comment by Pope John Paul II prior to his papacy:

If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti Connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XII's address to the midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.

Theological opposition has additionally come from Protestant Christianity. John Piper's Desiring God ministry states of NFP, "There is no reason to conclude that natural family planning is appropriate but that 'artificial' means are not." Sam and Bethany Torode, former advocates of NFP-only, have redacted their position to include barrier methods and explain their current theology this way:

We also see honest congruity with the language of the body by saying "no" to conception with our bodies (via barrier methods or sensual massage) when our minds and hearts are also saying "no" to conception. We don’t believe this angers God, nor that it leads to the slippery slope of relativism or divorce. We strongly disagree with the idea that this is a mortal sin.... it’s a theological attack on women to always require that abstinence during the time of the wife’s peak sexual desire (ovulation) for the entire duration of her fertile life, except for the handful of times when she conceives.

Catholics such as Charles Curran have also criticized the stance of Vitae on artificial birth control.