Hubris has no bounds. In a recent TEDx conference in Berlin, Melinda Gates, philanthropist and wife of Bill, issued her position on artificial contraception which directly opposes Catholic doctrine.

She spends billions of dollars on family planning programs in developing countries, yet sees "no controversy" with this public activity and the rules of the church to which she states she belongs. "Condoms save lives," she says.

The self-described practicing Catholic also says:

"in the tradition of the great Catholic scholars," it is "important to question received teachings," in particular "the one saying that birth control is a sin."

The church doesn't say an individual can't question its teachings; but it hasn't wavered on the birth control issue in 2000 years. What are the chances that Melinda Gates has more wisdom than all the apostles, popes and theologians combined?

What is her intention? On the one hand she says she wants to save lives, on the other she wants to prevent them from coming into being. Melinda Gates has made it her mission to create worldwide access to contraception. But her claim that contraception has nothing to do with population control or abortion rings hollow.

Perhaps the Duke trained MBA philanthropist should take a course on Catholic doctrine and find out why the church believes contraception opens the door to an abortive mentality. And as far as population control -- if you're preventing conception which would normally occur in sexually active women, you're controlling population.

Pseudo-saviors like Gates who proselytize the poor and offer them magic bullets to cure all their ills rely on their own personal views to affect huge populations. Just because a person has money, power and influence doesn't give her the right to set herself up as God.

Gates would do humanity much good if she stuck to her anti-malarial tents and vaccination programs for curable diseases and stayed out of the business of being a spiritual director to the world's Catholics.

Read more Ann Kane at Potter Williams Report