The Diocese of Grand Rapids Respect Life Ministry marked the start of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week on Sunday by raising awareness of the intent of the practice.

“Natural Family Planning Awareness Week begins July 24,” the group posted on Facebook Monday. “This year's theme, ‘Called to the Joy of Love’ celebrates fertility-based awareness methods and the marriage-strengthening benefits they offer to couples.” 

The Catholic Church teaches that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is built on the foundation of marriage as a gift that provides spouses the joy of sharing in God's procreative love, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said. The practice of NFP celebrates fertility as a priceless gift that should not be rejected, and the Church considers contraception an unnatural suppression of the gift of fertility and a rejection of the union of husband and wife. 

Practicing NFP does not mean that married couples have to leave the size of their family up to chance, the bishops said. Rather, they are encouraged to engage in fertility education so they can learn to practice sexual intimacy during the times in a woman's cycle in which she is naturally infertile, without violating the purpose of marital intercourse. Contraception is an assertion of one's belief that he or she should have total control over the creation of life, rejecting God's design. 

Popes have sometimes addressed the topic.

"Using the natural methods requires and strengthens the harmony of the married couple, it helps and confirms the rediscovery of the marvelous gift of parenthood, it involves respect for nature and demands the responsibility of the individuals," Pope John Paul II said in 1996.

The USCCB also pointed out something Pope Francis said. 

“As Pope Francis writes, ‘Love is more than a mere feeling;' its fruitfulness 'allows us to experience the happiness of giving’ (AL, 94),” the bishops posted on Facebook. “And marriage is the unique human relationship which God designed for the good of husband, wife, and children. Indeed, God created marriage for the good of humanity because marriage reflects God’s love—permanent, faithful, and fruitful. In this context, the methods of NFP support God’s design for married love!”