Luanda, Angola: Population 8.8 million

 

I am not going to do a lot of editorializing.

Angola is not a rich country.

Based on the walls and bars across every opening, it is not a high-trust society.

Trash is thrown into the street and is helpfully packed into the deepest ruts and potholes.

The torrential rains are more than the streets/drains can accommodate and the very foundations of the city are under-cut by erosion.

The high point of the video is when the videographer walks past a Catholic school at the 3:45 mark.

Catholic teachings on "birth control"

At this time, the mainstream Catholic teaching on artificial (i.e. not abstinence or (in some cases) barrier methods) birth control is that it is the equivalent of homicide because a fertilized egg is denied its right to implant into the endometrium of his or her mother's uterus. It is theologically considered the equivalent of not allowing a baby to nurse from his/her mother's breasts and letting him/her starve to death.

Catholic teachings evolve...but they evolve very slowly.

For instance, it was once taught that rape was a less grievous sin than masturbation. The "logic" was that a potential good (a baby) was possible with rape that was not a possibility with masturbation. That teaching reversed when the the debate expanded to include not just the sinner and potential offspring but to also include the woman (or man) who had been violated.

In the glacial pace of the Eternal Church, similar arguments are evolving where the greater social consequences of exceeding the carrying capacity of the land are being introduced into the debates. Every person who dies by starvation or communicable diseases that are exacerbated by over-crowding is a potential "player" in the calculus of sin-and-salvation.