I just saw on Twitter (H/T to Living the Sacrament) that this week’s The Catholic View Episode is entitled, “The Contraception Deception.” IT airs Friday, July 8th at 6:30pm EST. Boom. Can’t wait to see what they roll out. By the way, in case you didn’t know, EWTN has their shows live streaming on their website as well.

For more about their show schedule, check out this flyer (and post it in your parish/ community)!

Check out the trailer to this new film from Focus Features. It’s simply titled “Babies,” and the plot (evidently) is simply that it’s a documentary about four babies. The plot according to the web site is:

Everybody loves… BABIES. This visually stunning new movie simultaneously follows four babies around the world – from first breath to first steps. From Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, BABIES joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all.

Watch it. It’s adorable. Focus Features has done some films I liked like Away We Go, Atonement, and Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but they’re not exactly the most family friendly pictures, or produced by a company run by NFP and birth advocates. So, cynical me is wondering…what’s the catch? What population control ridiculousness or birth control status quo are they going to try to work into the film? Time will tell. Release is early 2010.

H/T to American Papist.

One More Soul's New Logo

Number five in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective NFP Promoters is Creative Presence, which includes an updated and effective web site that utilizes pictures and other media well. Here are a couple of my favorite web sites, including One More Soul’s newly updated web site, a priority of new Exec Director, Jenn Giroux (interview forthcoming). They’ve got a new logo, a slide show of their featured posts, persons and events, and an overall new setup.

One of those fertility-friendly web sites that’s gone through a redux is FertilityCare Centers of America. Well done, FertilityCare Centers!

They’ve harnessed the power of video and YouTube. They’ve kept the text simple, bulleted and readable (as opposed to their sister site of the Pope Paul VI Institute which is text heavy–8 point Times New Roman is not recommended–and virtually image and click-through free). Their color palette is cool, which is relaxing and lends itself I think to a medical feel, affirming their clinical setting. They offered simple and persuasive testimonials, links and very practical information on the p in obtaining insurance codes for natural family planning and fertility treatment through natural family planning.

The only thing I think they could add is a Facebook fan page (there are some hard-core FC fans out there!), an Amazon.com or One More Soul link to purchase their amazing testimonial book “Women Healed.” But it’s a great step in the right direction!

One of my other favorites is New Jersey NFP Association (NJNFP), founded by Damon & Melanie Owens. It’s clean, simple, uses effective and modern NFP terminology, and is organized well. They only thing that they could use is perhaps some embedded video promoting NFP. Damon’s a well known Theology of the Body speaker, so I imagine he’s got some video coverage somewhere! Keep it up Owens’!

From a Catholic Diocesan office point of view, Chicago’s NFP Office got one of the best–if not THE best–NFP sites out there. It’s got a similar color pallette as NJNFP, which gives it a warm glow and comfortable feel. They have a simple but good use of Flash in their header and left sidebar.  My only criticism might be that NFP is generally listed in the engaged area, which sort of makes the assumption that there’s not pastoral need to promote NFP to married couples. Since 90% of Catholic married couples are contracepting, I might make NFP more prominent in their “Marriage Resources” page. Overall, they just have a lot going on over in Chicago, so there’s plenty of coverage of their programs.

I love 30 Rock. Despite her politics, I love Tina Fey. She’s so dang clever, and freakin’ hilarious. She gets a ton of mileage out of the ugly duckling writer thing–even though everyone knows she cleans up nice.

Well, I was watching 30 Rock a couple weeks ago, and low and behold, one of the main themes was vasectomies. The Big Snip. Here we go again, I think. Nothing is sacred any more, and nothing promotes family and the beauty of children. Bugger. Stupid 30 Rock, and  stupid culture of death. This is particularly poignant for me because someone I know is considering a vasectomy, despite the moral and physical dangers (please pray for this person).  He just doesn’t know. Little did I know the way the story would develop…

There were too many killer lines in the episode to note them here, but I’ll say that the real highlight of the show is when Tracy Morgan (playing a  caricature of himself, “Tracy Jordan”) is about to go under the knife when the anesthetic–which causes him to hallucinate–induces a alternative universe for him in the form of a Cosby Show life featuring Tracy. In the scene Tracy walks in the the back door to a replica of the the famous Cosby kitchen, and his 30 Rock son, playing Theo, throws a his stuff onto a pile of garbage. Dialogue is initiated, and the place is a mess. Bill (Tracy) inquires about Sondra, Vanessa and Rudi, and  the 30 Rock version of Theo reveals that there’s no Sondra, no Vanessa, no Rudy. There’s no girls. They were never born. Enter vasectomy, stage right!

Essentially, Bill/ Tracy realizes how women civilize and balance out the family, and he comes out of the hallucination saying, “I need a baby girl, I need a baby girl….” You can guess (or watch) the rest.

The bottom line is that the writers of 30 Rock portrayed the utterly selfish motivations for getting a vasectomy (or any birth control in general, actually), and the life-changing potential for children, not to mention the semi-subtle fact that women and men are different, and that women compliment men for the better.

Can you imagine the comic potential if they’d actually introduced the dangers of vasectomies, not the least of which is spiritual alienation from God forbidding one from receiving Holy Communion (for Catholics) and an increase in auto-immune diseases and cancer?

Thinking about the big snip? Do a little research here:

• The Hurtful Consequences
• General overview, Q&A on Vasectomies (oops, not 100% effective, btw)
• What Sterilization did to us, and Sterilization Reversal: an act of healing: the awesome testimony of a retired Naval officer who regretted his vasectomy from the beginning, and his resulting journey to cure his inexplicable depression. For them, it wasn’t about having more children, but simply restoring his manhood and obeying God. I loved this story. Hearing a military man–someone of inherent vigor, virtue and quality–tell his story and regret brought me to tears.

Part two of the FertilityCare piece on Infertilty and alternatives to IVF.

A great new video from the new web site of FertilityCare Centers of America. News Flash: There are alternatives to IVF!

This is a hot topic these days. Overpopulation alarmists don’t want  you to see it, and will quote all the online articles and second rate scientists they can find to prove otherwise. Still doesn’t help the fact that they’re wrong. Watch this preview and see what you think.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2IZEzUmA0]

While not the best piece of cinematic art out there (review coming super soon), it’s got truth, science and a compelling message on its side. We need more people and investors willing to put this message out there, and directors/ producers like Rick Stout and Barry McLerran to do it.

Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM]

Once people realize it’s not that healthy or safe, it deconstructs relationships and marriages and potentially ends pregnancies, they throw one last argument in the mix: overpopulation. Throw this on your crumbling polemical pyre, folks: threatening overpopulation is a myth. While there has been exponential population growth, especially in the last century, it is not having the disastrous effect as was predicted by chicken little butterfly specialist (yes, really) Paul Erlich in the 70′s. Mind you, none of his hyperbolic and sensationalist predictions of “The Population Bomb” have come true.

I know that people feel really strongly about this, and are really attached to the idea of overpopulation. This is fueled by heart-wrenching pictures of emaciated children in parts of the world where civil wars and genocidal dictators have taken away their access to food–not the sheer numbers of the population. For those whom this video ticks off or perhaps surprises you, I would encourage you to not only check out the Population Research Institute, but to see the documentary Demographic Winter (review forthcoming).

After you do that, you can check additional secular pieces in well known publications to confirm the crisis of rapidly declining fertility rates.

The Human Experience (Official Trailer) Grassroots Films
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR41IE62n7I]

For screenings in your area, look here.

Love, Responsibility & Hormones
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bevk4s1I0XM]
Find out about anthropological research of contraception’s effect on monkeys, and what this says about human use of contraception. Amazing. The full audio/ video of this is in the New & Revised version of Janet Smith’s “Contraception: Why Not.”

(Newly Updated 5/8/09)
ABC’s Nightline did a piece tonight on Christopher West and Theology of the Body tonight, and I tuned in to see how badly the media would mess it up.

View the video here.

But guess what? It was brilliant. Zero trace of anti-Catholicism, and several money moments for telling the Good News of Sex and Marriage, complete with married couples’ testimonies, the bulimia-contraception analogy, and the mutual climax quote from John Paul II (You’ve got to see the clip or read the books to know what I’m talking about).

A downside in trying to pack in so much in ten minutes is that you leave out all of the dimensions of the Theology of the Body, like the beauty of vocation, celibacy and consecrated life, its implications for art, liturgy and beyond. As I said recently to a friend, sometimes people get the idea (as it would be easy to) that TOB is “Theology of the Genitals,” when, in fact, it’s Theology of the Body, Soul and entire person.

Another critique I have, which is probably a critique that many have of Christopher West, is that if you didn’t know Christopher West, Theology of the Body, and the context, he might come off a little like a sex maniac. However, if you know how far he’s come in his personal and professional development, you get it. West is really good at what he does–communicating and getting one’s attention so that he can share Theology of the Body. This is a message people need to hear, and one that has affected the lives of so many already.

Did you see it? What did you think?

Things you can do:

• Read Theology of the Body for Beginners, or buy it for someone who’s not read it
• Pray for hearts and minds of those who saw this tonight to be opened
• Thank ABC (see link above) for doing a piece on TOB

Update: Read CNA’s Interview with West regarding the “sensationalism” of the interview content.
Update 2: CNA’s Interview with Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand, Mary Shivanandan, and Fr. Jose Granados.

Update 3: Facebook conversation on Natural Family Planning discussion board.

I have a review copy of a relatively new informational DVD on natural methods of family planning from the Diocese of Rockville Center, NY. So here’s my review.

About the DVD:
Title: “Plan Your Family…Naturally”
Director/ Producer: John Romanowsky
Sponsored by: Diocese of Rockville, NY in association with Order of Malta
Running Time: 22 minutes

Synopsis: The title is pretty much self explanatory, but what approach does John Romanowsky take to explain natural methods of family planning? Shot in a basic documentary interview format,  Drs. Jennifer and Matthew DeMarco are joined by Chris and Dan Volpe and Damon and Melanie Owens, married couples who share their own experience of discovering, learning, and living NFP. These couples give a heartfelt, real-life witness to its effectiveness, challenges, and many benefits-practical, relational, and spiritual-as they cooperate with God’s natural plan for married sexuality.

Strengths: I agree with the promotional web site’s description. This video is contemporary and engaging. As I lament in another entry on marketing NFP, quality contemporary NFP marketing materials are few and far between, for many reasons (lack of connections, know-how, but usually lack of funds and initiative). While there are a few visual and artistic weaknesses, the production value (including often looked-over hair, lighting, and makeup) is quite good, and much higher than the usual efforts. The couples were well spoken, sincere, joyful and told their stories in an honest an engaging way. The DeMarco’s being the core narrators of the DVD were a real asset, not only for their medical credentials, but their friendly and intelligent presence. Not to be sexist, but I’ve found having a female medical professional who is well spoken is a tremendous asset to marketing NFP. Having an engaging male medical professional is certainly a plus, but having a woman doctor just gives that extra boost of confidence to females, who are oftentimes the one first looking into NFP and/or making the initial decision to take a class. (Having said that, I also think it’s important to market more materials specifically towards men, as they usually have a different visual vocabulary.) The DVD’s “Resources” section was a good idea, and the medical illustrations were top notch–very well done and comprehensive without appearing overly complicated.

Weaknesses: Having the opening shot be an atomic microscopic photo of sperm swimming definitely reiterates the the theme of life, but may be a little bit of a shock to those bringing rhythm-method, 17 sibling stereotype baggage to their first viewing of the DVD. A better opening shot might have been something less biological and something more relational/ emotional. Conversely, the description on web site described NFP in a typical “NFP is as effective as the pill for postponing pregnancy” phraseology without referencing the use of NFP to achieve pregnancy or treat women’s wellness issues. This is one of the major downfalls of current NFP marketing materials, and leads to misunderstanding of NFP from both pro-contraceptive people as well as the Providentialists and Quiverfull camp. While the DVD certainly is very contemporary, it would have been helpful to have a young adult couple share their thoughts, doubts and joys about NFP. It was very good to have older, more established couples share their wisdom and experience, but most of the people going through marriage preparations programs and pre-Cana are young adults. Young adults appreciate the witness of older married couples, but hearing the testimony of other young adult couples makes the reality more concrete and relatable. Along those same lines, more resources, especially Internet resources and web sites could have been added, like “NFP on Facebook” or One More Soul or NFP Blogs (shameless self-plug).  Also, Damon & Melanie Owens are rock stars of the marriage prep and NFP worlds, being a well known Theology of the Body speaker/co-founders of the New Jersey NFP association, and should have gotten some props for what they do, or at the very least a title bar under their initial interview with their titles. Lastly, I wish it was about 15-20 minutes longer, with a little background to NFP for health reasons.

Recommendations: Though this DVD has some weaknesses, it is by far one of the best NFP introductions out there. It should be used in marriage prep programs if there isn’t already a quality introduction talk/ course for NFP. People who should have at least one copy (if not several): Diocesan Evangelization Directors, Family Life Directors & NFP Coordinators, DREs, Adult Faith Formation Coordinators at larger parishes, every parish nurse, all high school youth ministers, and every seminarian, deacon and parish pastor.

Have we got things covered?Have you gotten a chance to view it? What did you think? To order, click link at the top of the page, btw.