Death rates in the 20th century 1 year old. In 1999, at the end of the century, the infant mortality rate in the United States declined more than 90% to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. Similarly, maternal mortality rates declined almost 99% to less than 0.1 reported deaths per 1,000 live births. There are a variety of causes for this steep decline in death rates in the 20th century: Despite these tremendous decreases in infant mortality and maternal mortality, the 20th century experienced significant disparities between minority death rates compared to death rates for white mothers. In the 1900s, black women were twice as likely
Catholic Church in the 20th century into the 20th century, Catholics—even if no longer resorting to persecution—still defined Protestants as heretics. Thus, Hilaire Belloc - in his time one of the most conspicuous speakers for Catholicism in Britain - was outspoken about the "Protestant heresy". He also defined Islam as "A Christian heresy", on the grounds that Muslims accept many of the tenets of Christianity but deny the godhood of Jesus (see Hilaire Belloc#On Islam). In the second half of the century - and especially in the wake of Vatican II - the Catholic Church, in the spirit of ecumenism, no longer referred to Protestantism as