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 2026, Natural Family Planning Awareness Week is being celebrated July 19-25. This year's theme is "Designed by God, Guided by Love, Open to Life." It celebrates the fact that since God created man and woman in his image and likness, divine love is inscribed in the human body itself; that love must be directed toward the good of the other; and that God calls husband and wife to embrace their shared fertility as a God," having created marriage to be the home of the family. (Source: Designed by God, Guided by Love, Open to Life by Rev. Msgr. Robert R. Cannon)

Natural Family Planning

Natural Family Planning (NFP) methods are evidence-based approaches to fertility education that can assist couples in identifying when fertility is as its peak so that they can either attempt to achieve pregnancy or to postpone it. Modern NFP methods have been proven to be highly effective.

Unlike other methods, NFP respects the gift of life and does not intefere with God's design for married couples. 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.

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.