Vatican Control of World Health Organization Policy: An Interview with Milton P. Siegel former assistant director general of WHO, from: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF NSSM 200, Appendix 3 by Stephen D. Mumford

PAPAL POLITICS AND WOMEN A landmark report by the first woman admitted as an undergraduate to the University of Notre Dame. From: On the Issues, Fall 1998.  Author Ann Pettifer provides a comprehensive overview of the contraception debate within the Catholic Church and the actions of the far-right leadership to control billions of women.

"An equally important feature of the debate--about which the non-Catholic world is largely ignorant--is that, for decades, hostility to birth control has been the touchstone of papal authority. The Vatican has long believed that if it lost control of this issue, the whole edifice of papal infallibility might collapse like a house of cards.

"With the Church under siege on many fronts--the ordination of women and mandatory celibacy come to mind--it might seem odd at first that it should so fanatically stake its authority on holding the line on contraception.

"In 1968, in spite of a thorough investigation by a blue-ribbon Vatican commission, which had concluded that the Church should reverse its teaching on contraception, the Pope at the time, Paul VI, decided otherwise in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae. The commission’s report was ignored and the Church’s opposition t o birth control was reiterated."

Pettifer also describes the machinations of the "Catholic fascist cult Opus Dei," revealing some of the questions surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I after only 33 days in office and the election and consolidation of power of the present pontiff.

Looking for a possible reason for the untimely death of John Paul I, she cites his statement before he assumed the Papacy, "I assure all of you, that bishops would be more than happy to find a doctrine that declared the use of contraceptives legitimate under certain conditions."

And what the future holds for us:

"Any UN conference on population or ecology may expect the Vatican, usually in the person of Joachim Navarro Valls, its chief spokesman (and an influential member of Opus Dei), to use its observer status to sabotage programs and funding for family planning.... Papal reproductive politics are played out with devastating effect in vulnerable, developing countries, where women must incubate babies they cannot feed--much less educate adequately.... as the U.S. gears up for elections in the year 2000, the Vatican has begun to develop what it hopes will be a winning strategy.”

Foreign Political Interference . . . Vatican Style. John M. Swomley discusses the Vatican’s intervention in the internal affairs of Lebanon, Poland, Argentina, Sudan, Biafra, Nicaragua, Palestine, the United States and the United Nations. From: The Humanist, July-August 1997

Church or State? The Holy See at the United Nations. This special report by Center for Reproductive Law & Policy concludes that: ".... the status of the Holy See as a non-member state permanent observer in the United Nations is questionable. Moreover, there are doubts about whether, in 1964, the Holy See met the established criteria for attaining this position.... the United Nations is creating a precedent for similar claims by other religions.

To ensure that the United Nations does not promote one particular religious view, religious entities such as the Roman Catholic Church should not be permitted to participate in that body as nonmember states.... "

THE BOGUS "DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION" THEORY from: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF NSSM 200, Chapter 16 - by Stephen D. Mumford

TUTU CHALLENGES VATICAN ON BIRTH CONTROL, ABORTION. In this Reuter’s report Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa calls for a six month moratorium on debts for African nations and challenges the Vatican’s claims that population control was bad for the Third Word.