The Roman Catholic Church has been an outstanding defender of human rights in Guatemala since the death of Archbishop Casariego in 1983. While the Church has attempted to defend the people from the State, however, in other ways the institutional hierarchy can't seem to uproot itself from the 19th century. Such is very clearly the case in terms of sex education, which the church fought in the courts and from the pulpit for two years until its final passage on November 16 of 2009.

The objection of the august leaders of the church seems to be in part a knee-jerk rejection of contraception, along with the notion that sex ed would inevitably promote abortion. Never mind that the abortion rate in Guatemala without sex ed classes is already very high, with an estimated 65,000 per year performed - a great majority of which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, are performed by non-medical personnel under non-sterile conditions. Never mind, too, that 22,000 of these back alley abortions are hospitalized each year for post-procedural problems.

Ludicrously, Guatemalan bishops, under the sage direction of Archbishop Rodolfo Quezada of Guatemala City, compares contraception to "a bullet," and said promoting awareness of birth control would promote "a culture of death."

He does not seem to worry about the "culture of death" and the violence of extreme poverty that unchecked birth rates bring. Nor does he seem to worry that families, communities, the country, or the church has resources to provide even sufficient nourishment, basic education, or public health for families with 10 children.

This information was derived from articles in several Guatemalan newspapers (all the well-known dailies have several recent articles). A good English version of the story is posted by IPS news at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49436