Natural Family Planning Week events
to be held on July 29-30 in Indianapolis

By Mary Ann Wyand

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, will be observed in the archdiocese on July 29-30 with a Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Benediction and a family picnic.

“In His Presence—A Call to Chastity” is the theme of the annual observance, held this year on July 24-30, which promotes Church teachings on marital chastity and Natural Family Planning.

The events in central Indiana are sponsored by the archdiocesan Office of Family Ministries, archdiocesan Office of Pro-Life Ministry and Couple to Couple League of Greater Indianapolis.

Father Daniel Mahan, pastor of St. Louis Parish in Batesville and chaplain of the Couple to Couple League, is the celebrant and homilist for a Mass at 7 p.m. on July 29 at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, 1347 N. Meridian St., in Indianapolis.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is scheduled in the chapel from 8 p.m. on July 29 until noon on July 30 when Father Shaun Whittington, associate pastor of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis, will lead the gathering in Benediction.

A family picnic is scheduled at 4 p.m. on July 30 at the West Park Picnic Shelter in Carmel, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese.

St. Luke parishioners Michael and Ann Green of Indianapolis teach Natural Family Planning classes and are helping coordinate the annual observance.

“We all have to examine how much we put God in charge of our life decisions,” Michael Green said on July 25. “While we each pray daily for our Lord’s will to be done, statistics show that only 5 percent to 10 percent of Catholics are following the Church’s teachings in the area of marital sexuality.”

Pope Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”) “describes the importance of keeping joined the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital embrace,” Ann Green said. “Pope Paul was prophetic in ‘Humanae Vitae’ when he described the breakdown of marital chastity by allowing contraception. He described women being made into objects and foretold an increase in abuse and pornography.”

In “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”), Pope John Paul II emphasized that “contraception and abortion are often closely related as fruits of the same tree,” she said. “Attacks on human life begin and have in their root an attack against chastity. To defeat the culture of death, we must first pray for a return to chastity among single men and women as well as among married couples, [and]… that all couples allow God into this very critical area of their life.”

(For more information about “In His Presence—A Call to Chastity” events or Natural Family Planning classes, call Michael and Ann Green at 317-228-9276 or log on to www.nfpindy.org.) †