Kenyan Catholic Couple Using Life Experience to Advocate for Natural Family Planning

“We have been using natural family planning for five years. We switched from contraceptives which we had been using from the time we got married,” he said, and added, “We embarked on the natural family planning journey before COVID-19, and now it’s about four years of teaching other people about contraceptives; we have been certified as NFP instructors.”

He said that a majority of Catholics are using contraceptives, a choice he says is ignorance of the Church teachings about the matter.

“About 97 percent of the Catholics using contraceptives are receiving Holy Communion, making sacrilegious communion every Sunday and most of them, because of their guilt they'll go to confession,” he said.

Mr. Muindi opined that selfishness is one of the reasons people prefer to use contraceptives despite their side effects and the teaching of the Catholic Church.

“When you are using contraceptives, it is actually selfishness. You're not giving yourself fully to your partner. So, you are saying I give my body to you, but I restrain my fertility,” Mr. Muindi said.

He said that besides selfishness, a couple that uses contraceptives cannot easily sacrifice for each other as far as the marital act is concerned. Mr. Muindi blamed the absence of sacrifice to the fact that contraceptives allow marital act anytime, while NFP permits sacrifice between the couple.

“You are not sacrificing yourself and that's one of the things brought about by selfishness, which is a product of the contraceptive mentality,” he said.

Mr. Muindi who has been married for seven years told ACI Africa that many people enter marriage with wrong reasons, including mere pleasure. He added that the pleasure mentality is what compels the use of contraceptives.

He said that those who enter marriage for pleasure reasons end up using contraceptives because they want the marital act without accountability and responsibility.

“Marriage should be fruitful; most people think that they got into marriage for pleasure. So, people get into marriage for the wrong reasons,” he emphasized, and added, “The time for pleasure lasts for a few hours, a few minutes and you'll find yourself more dissatisfied every time you're seeking the same thing.”

“Contraceptives have brought marriage into such a case that when a man and a woman get married what they're thinking is, what will I get from my wife or my husband? It should be the other way round. I die for my spouse and she dies for me, that's how we are called to holiness and we sanctify each other,” Mr. Muindi told ACI Africa during the April 10 interview.

He said that the Catechism of the Catholic Church guides on how the church should work closely with the Catholic doctors in an effort to sensitize the faithful about both the spiritual and physical dangers associated with contraceptives.

“The Priests should be working more closely with the couples and teach them that it is sinful to use contraceptives, and be open to life because that is what marriage life is,” he said.

He added, “The Bishops and the Priests themselves should be on the forefront in teaching about the dangers of contraceptives right from the pulpit and educate the faithful that using contraceptives is a sin.”

Mr. Muindi said that to embrace NFP, the virtue of chastity must be given a top priority, so that the couple, especially the man, can be in a position to guard their urges during the fertility days of the wife.

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On her part, Mrs. Muindi said that despite contraceptives helping some parents to space their children due to particular reasons including financial, social or safeguarding the life of a mother, their use destroys the marital bond between the husband and the wife.

“Contraceptives affect parenting because of the side effects that come with them. The side effects make a family uninhabitable because of feelings and emotions which are normally affected,” Mrs. Muindi told ACI Africa.

She added, “The contraceptives equally affect the marital bond. When marital acts are interfered with, everything from the peace of home becomes a disaster. When the bond is missing, there is a likelihood of mistrust and promiscuity.”

Mr. Muindi underscored the need for members of the Clergy and the Laity to undergo formation to create awareness on dangers of contraceptives and to encourage the embracing of NFP method.

He said that seminars and workshops should be organized so as to sensitize the faithful on the Catholic Church teachings on contraceptives and the best way forward, which involves embracing NFP.

In the April 10 interview with ACI Africa, Mr. Muindi proposed the use of Catholic media to create awareness about contraceptives in the light of the Catholic Church teaching.

He noted that one of the challenges the Church is facing in addressing the issue of contraceptives, is the presence of doctors who are readily available to administer the contraceptives to the people even in an unethical way.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (ccc 2370) teaches that birth regulation based on self-observation which is NFP is not only morally right but also conforms with the objective criteria of morality.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the number of women desiring to use family planning has “increased markedly over the past two decades, from 900 million in 2000 to nearly 1.1 billion in 2020.”

“The number of women using a modern contraceptive method increased from 663 million to 851 million and the contraceptive prevalence rate increased from 47.7 to 49.0 per cent. An additional 70 million women are projected to be added by 2030,” reads the WHO report.

According to WHO, the proportion of women of reproductive age who have their need for family planning satisfied by modern contraceptive methods (SDG indicator 3.7.1) has increased gradually in recent decades, rising from 73.6 per cent in 2000 to 76.8 per cent in 2020.

WHO says that the growth is slow and attributes it to cultural or religious opposition among other reasons.