BOMA-TT is an Affiliate of the World Organisation of the Ovulation Method Billings (WOOMB) International. WOOMB is an international organisation founded to help spread the Billings Ovulation Method for natural family planning.

It was initiated in 1953 by Australian physicians John and Evelyn Billings as an alternative to artificial contraception and the other natural methods of the time (including the temperature and the Rhythm/Calendar method).

The method is endorsed by the Church, as well as being approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In April of this year, WOOMB International held a congress in Rome, Italy entitled ‘The ‘Billings Revolution’ 70 years later: from fertility knowledge to personalized medicine’.

Pope Francis wrote a letter to the organisers and participants which was read by a Vatican representative. Here’s an excerpt:

“I very much appreciate this initiative, which once again reminds us of the beauty and dignity of human sexuality. In the second half of the last century, as pharmacological research for fertility control expanded and the contraceptive culture was on the rise, John and Evelyn Billings conducted careful scientific research and developed a simple method, accessible to women and couples, for natural knowledge of fertility. The method offered them a valuable tool for the responsible management of procreative choices.

In those years, their approach might have appeared outdated and less reliable in comparison with the purported immediacy and security of pharmacological interventions.

Yet in fact, their method has continued to prove timely and challenging, since it has led to serious reflection on several essential areas. These include the need for education in the value of the human body, an integrated and integral vision of human sexuality, an ability to cherish the fruitfulness of love even when not fertile, the building up of a culture that welcomes life and ways to confront the problem of demographic collapse.

In this respect, the original momentum of what has been called the ‘Billings revolution’ has not diminished but continues to contribute to the understanding of human sexuality and a fuller appreciation of the relational and procreative dimensions of the couple.

In a world dominated by a relativistic and a trivialised view of human sexuality, serious education in this area appears increasingly necessary, requiring an anthropological and ethical approach in which doctrinal issues are explored without undue simplifications or inflexible conclusions.

There is a need always to keep in mind the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act (cf PAUL VI, Humanae Vitae, 12).

The former expresses the desire of the spouses to be one, a single life; the latter expresses the shared desire to generate life, which endures even at times of infertility and in old age.

When these two meanings are consciously affirmed, the generosity of love is born and strengthened in the hearts of the spouses, disposing them to welcome new life.

Lacking this, the experience of sexuality is impoverished, reduced to sensations that soon become self-referential, and its dimensions of humanity and responsibility are lost. The tragedy of violence between sexual partners – including the murder of women—here finds one of its main causes.

Indeed, we are tending to lose sight of the connection between sexuality and the fundamental vocation of each person, the gift of self, which finds fulfilment in conjugal and family love.

This truth, while present in the heart of each human being, requires education to achieve full expression. This is urgently needed, and it represents a challenge for the Church and all those who have the good of the person and society at heart.”

We will continue in next month’s column.

BOMA-TT Tel: 384-1659,

Email: naturalfertility@catholictt.org Website: www.billingstt.com

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash