Principles of the Couple to Couple League

The Creator of the universe and the Lord of Life has created marriage for love and life.

1. The Catholic Church provides the basis for our understanding of Christian marriage.
   1. We are each created in the image and likeness of God to love as such, and are called to act as God acts.
   2. The marital act is a gift of one spouse to the other for the sake of the other; as such it builds up marital love and marriages.
   3. The love-life bond of a sacramental marriage allows a couple to love children into existence.
   4. Children are to be accepted as a gift from God—whether planned or not—and are to be loved for their own sake.
   5. Married couples are called to be generous in the service of life.
      1. Married couples are not required to have as many children as may be physically possible.
      2. Responsible parenthood is the couple’s application of the Christian virtue of prudence to the question of when they should seek pregnancy and when they should postpone pregnancy. Within the broad guidelines provided by the Magisterium of the Church, each couple must prayerfully make their own prudential determinations.
   6. Certain acts are inherently contrary to marriage and the plan of the Creator. These include:
      1. The use of drugs, devices, or procedures that abort a newly conceived life, which is an attack against the mother, father, and the new life.
      2. Any action which intentionally damages or frustrates the normal function of a healthy, reproductive or other functioning part of the body. Such actions are contrary to the dignity of the human person and include, but are not limited to, abortion, sterilization, or contraceptive behavior, e.g. using anti-conception or anti-implantation drugs, chemicals and devices or behaviors such as withdrawal, masturbation, or sodomy.
      3. Adultery, fornication, pornography and homosexual acts, which are contrary to the dignity of the human person.
      4. Technological interventions (such as IVF) which separate conception from the marital act are contrary to the dignity of the human person and deny the basic right of every child to be conceived in an act of love between its mother and father.
2. Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the knowledge of the shared fertility of husband and wife.
   1. NFP helps married couples to conceive when they are seeking to cooperate with God in the creation of a new human person, called to eternal life
   2. When Christian prudence leads a couple to conclude that they should postpone a pregnancy, they should abstain from marital relations during the fertile times they can identify through NFP.
   3. NFP allows well-instructed couples, with proper use, to achieve the same effectiveness of spacing babies as common forms of artificial birth control, without the moral problems or serious potential side-effects.
3. Couples should to turn to prayer and sacrifice in placing the sexual drive at the service of authentic married love.
4. Teachers shall respect the appropriate autonomy of learning couples to determine the size of their own families based on their own physical, economic, psychological and social conditions.
5. Educating about the benefits of exclusive and continued breastfeeding is taught in relation to the mission of the League.
6. Whenever teachers engage in any form of chastity education or marriage preparation, they must respect the teachings of the Catholic Church and use age-appropriate language.
7. Involvement in our apostolate should always respect the priorities within the family.