Mindanao, Catholics teach Muslims natural family planning
Maguindanao (AsiaNews) – A group of lay Catholics have decided to dedicate themselves to promoting natural family planning methods among the Philippine Muslim community, in order to control the rising population without going against the beliefs held by the two religions.
The group began its campaign in Maguindanao, southern Mindanao province, where the percentage of Muslim faithful reaches 90 percent of the total population. From here, it hopes to carry its work to the rest of the country, in order to tackle the problem of birth control without falling back on artificial birth control methods, which are promoted by many parliamentarians.
A well known and much appreciated method – known as the “Billings ovulation method” – is in fact based on the analysis of the female ovulation cycle and allows for the differentiation of the fertile period from the sterile period.
The project is lead by a Catholic nun, Mary Catherine Sumapal, who explains : “It is quite normal in this part of the world to see girls as young as 13 who are married, This results in them having a child almost every year, which is hard to bare. Now thanks to natural family planning, we can hope to avoid the more common problems linked to pregnancy”.
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