NFP & Divorce

OK, I have a pet peeve when it comes to how NFP is presented.  Well, a few of them, in fact, but the one for today is when people try to "sell" NFP based upon the low divorce rate amongst those using NFP.  This is even worse when that is used as a selling point with Catholic marriage preparation, in my opinion.

So why does this bother me?  First off, can we really say that NFP itself causes this low divorce rate?  As far as I'm aware, the majority of people using NFP are those who are devout Catholics, and they probably wouldn't be using it if they didn't already subscribe to Church teaching regarding marriage.  If that is the case, then they wouldn't be likely to divorce anyway, using NFP or not.

Second, it leaves out the fact that NFP isn't required.  I highly doubt that the divorce rate amongst Catholic couples using NFP versus those not using NFP or anything else is that different.  And really, if they're getting married in a Catholic parish, then saying that NFP users have low divorce rates shouldn't really matter, since anyone getting married in a Catholic parish should be able to say that.  Yes, I'm aware that that isn't always the case, because many are woefully unprepared for marriage for one reason or another, leading to the many annulments that are granted.  Hopefully that begins to change given Papa Ben's instructions to be more careful in preparing couples for marriage.

Divorce statistics definitely won't be a part of my presentation on NFP at Engaged Encounter this weekend, and hopefully I can also avoid my other pet peeves when it comes to presenting NFP. ;-)