Gerald reports that Bishop John Yanta of Amarillo, Texas, is now requiring all couples seeking to marry in his diocese to take natural family planning classes, as is also the case in Phoenix, Denver, and Fargo.
“Omnia parata” (All is ready) as Jesus said in the parable of the wedding feast. In all parts of the diocese we have teachers trained to give the Natural Family Planning instruction in both English and Spanish.
“I ask Almighty God to forgive me for waiting so long to implement Natural Family Planning as normative and as a requirement for a marriage to be witnessed by our priests and deacons in the Diocese of Amarillo.
“Every married couple has the right from the Church to continue on the road to sainthood begun in baptism by living as one joined to Christ: Natural Family Planning is God’s way to live responsible parenthood. Marriage and family are the pillars of the Church and society”.
As I’ve said before, I think NFP classes are a very useful tool, even if a couple knows they don’t want to engage in any purposeful spacing of children. There are good lessons on biology (ones which Melanie says she wishes they taught girls in high school) as well as on good relationships and Catholic morality. One of the biggest issues in Catholic matrimony today is the use of contraception (just ask anyone working in marriage preparation or in the annulment process).
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