May 9, 2014 | catholicnewsherald.com
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for our Photo provided by David Foppe
Pictured from the NFP mission with Father Daniel McCaffrey are David and Meg Foppe with their five children (Philip, Frank, Nathanael, Maggie and Elizabeth), Joe and Normalinda Hammond and their three children (Thomas, John Patrick and Valentina) and Dr. Lewis and Leslie Lipscomb and their three children (Webb, Mary Grace and Ave).
Speakers educate parishioners on NFP, Church teaching Glenn Lanham Special to the Catholic News Herald
GREENSBORO — Father Daniel McCaffrey of NFP (Natural Family Planning) Outreach Inc. recently came to speak at all the Masses for St. Paul the Apostle Church in Greensboro. A retired military chaplain, Father McCaffrey also served as a missionary in Pakistan for eight years. While serving as chaplain at Fort Hood, Texas, the chaplain was reflecting on the Encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which explains the Church’s teaching against artificial contraception. This was 1973, and his parishioners were struggling how to receive this sometimes difficult teaching into their lives. Later that year, his local bishop sent him to an NFP seminar near Austin. He came away excited about the recent discovery of the Billings Ovulation Method, a medical breakthrough which helped him preach about “Humanae Vitae” with “new vigor.” Thus he began his non-profit ministry, and he is now joined by Benedictine Father Matthew Habiger in this outreach effort. His talks the weekend of March 22-23 began with applause, to which Father McCaffrey replied, “I hope you will applaud me afterwards!” It was one of many humorous attempts to lighten the difficulties people may have had with the Church’s message on artificial contraception. Father McCaffrey spoke about marriage as a sacrament instituted by Christ. He noted that matrimony is a difficult vocation, and each spouse gets to heaven in part by being faithful to their marriage and its responsibilities. He noted how Pope St. John Paul II in his writings on the Theology of the Body compared marriage to the union of the Blessed Trinity. This union between persons is so real it brings forth new life, he noted. Continuing this theme, Father McCaffrey preached how the marital act must not be separated from openness to life, which is exactly what artificial contraception does. Sterilization is another practice that many Catholics do not consider sinful, he noted, although Catholic teaching forbids
it. Nonetheless, he said he has found a positive response to his talks on reversing this, once people became aware of its moral gravity. People’s ignorance of Church teaching, he said, is because many priests do not preach about it in their homilies. He also noted that sterilization is an offence against the Fifth Commandment by destroying one’s own health and reproductive system. He recounted an incident in which the Protestant President Teddy Roosevelt told a group of women that the “country that supports contraception supports national suicide.” After Mass, Dr. Lewis D. Lipscomb also spoke to parishioners. Lipscomb is an obstetrician/gynecologist in WinstonSalem who operates North Carolina’s only purely pro-life, non-contraceptive OB-GYN practice in association with Novant Health. Raised a Methodist, Lipscomb’s pro-life ideas at first basically amounted to a vague opposition to abortion. Then he married a Catholic, and he and his wife practiced artificial contraception without really thinking about it. However, through the gradual awakening of his wife’s conscience, along with medical complications related to artificial contraception, they decided to stop. Then she confronted him with the decisive question: “What about what you do for a living? You’re leading people into sin.” Lipscomb decided to investigate further, and a one-week course at the Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha led him to consider abandoning all contraceptive counseling or sterilization surgeries. He was eventually called to start his own practice in Winston-Salem, and has been blessed with supportive and enthusiastic office staff and a thriving, growing practice. He asked his listeners a poignant question: “Is fertility a disease?” After his speech, David and Meg Foppe of Greensboro gave their own witness to the life-changing effects of NFP and how God always provides for their needs in this matter. Glenn Lanham is a member of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Greensboro.
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