For months, the Vatican has been filibustering against the United Nations’ International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that convenes September 5 in Cairo. In March, Pope John Paul II castigated the conference leader, Dr. Nafis Sadik, during her audience at the Vatican. :Marriage is ignored, as if it were something of the past," he fumed in a press statement. In April, the Holy See and a handful of Catholic countried tied up the advance meetings in New York with numbing debates over phrases like "individuals and couples," "reproductive and sexual health," and even "safe motherhood," which the Vatican somehow interprets as condoning pre-marital sex, contraception or abortion. And in June, 114 cardinals from around the world gathered in Rome to denounce "cultural imperialism" and "ideologies" whereby "abortion on demand, sexual promiscuity and distorted notions of the family are proclaimed as human rights or proposed as ideals for the young." The Vatican wants everyone to restrict their sexual lives to the time of the month when a woman is naturally infertile, no matter what their religion, no matter what the state of the world.