Is NFP evil?

Oftentimes I find myself falling into the trap of thinking of Natural Family Planning (NFP) as the official Catholic Birth Control. And certainly, NFP, though not illicit in its form, can be used in a sinful way. As I recoil from this thought, I usually bounce to the opposite extreme, thinking that NFP is completely wrong and shouldn't ever be used.

One of the reasons I love the Catholic church is that dilemmas like this have almost always already been solved - we just have to find the answers. Catholic author Thomas Storck has compiled some of the answers into a clear and concise form in his article NFP: A Defense and an Explanation.

As the title of the article suggests, he both explains why NFP is not Catholic Birth Control and defends (as well as defines) the licit use of NFP. Faithful to the Church's magisterium, Storck sifts through church teaching to reveal the nuggets of wisdom already proclaimed by the magisterium, then uses sound reasoning to answer the unexplained questions.

Although Janet Smith's babies and bonding argument has been a staple of the Catholic apologetics diet for some time, I've found that line of reasoning tends to lead to a characterization of NFP as Catholic Birth Control. However, Smith's arguments combined with Storck's elucidation of church teaching provide a potent intellectual defense of the Catholic teaching on birth control.

Yet in this case, I'd be willing to bet the best intellectual defense of the teaching means next to nothing. In matters of birth control, the Holy Spirit certainly earns his keep.