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Pope Francis presides the weekly general audience at Paul-VI hall at the Vatican

Photo by Vatican Media/Catholic Press Photo/IPA/ABACAPRESS.COMN

Hard Numbers: Pope cracks down, Americans live (bit) longer, coup plotters arrested, Amazon deforestation slows, adopt axolotls

2: Pope Francis is punishing two different high-ranking, conservative American clergymen for being sources of church disunity. Bishop Joseph Strickland, of Tyler, Texas, was relieved of his duties earlier this month, and Cardinal Raymond Burke of Wisconsin is about to be evicted from his Vatican apartment and will lose his salary as a retired cardinal. Emblematic of the divide between traditionalists and progressives in the Catholic Church, the pontiff faces backlash for calling out vaccine skeptics, welcoming LGBTQ+ people into the church, critiquing capitalism, and criticizing climate change deniers. The first Jesuit Pope has called out American Catholics directly in the past, warning against a “strong reactionary attitude” and being ruled solely by ideology.
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Graph showing global fertility rates and life expectancies.

Ari Winkleman

The Graphic Truth: Who's making enough babies?

Japan isn’t the only country worried about the social and economic impacts of its shrinking population. Many countries across East Asia and Europe have been grappling with similar demographic trends in recent years, with some countries, like Hungary, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at women to encourage more procreation. Conversely, Africa is home to the top 14 countries with the highest fertility rates in the world. However, poor healthcare access and conflict mean that the average baby born in Africa will live far fewer years than their European and East Asian counterparts. We take a look at countries with the highest and lowest fertility rates and their respective life expectancies.

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