My Catholic family, and most Catholics I know, pay little attention to the Vatican. He's like what the Queen is to the British. Heck, even in America, where religious lunacy is accepted as normal, Catholics there overwhelmingly support contraception, and tend to support things like abortion and gay rights.
Only Catholic I know who listens to the Pope is Iron, but he's a bit touched.
My guess is this is far, far, more detrimental to Africa, South-East Asia, and Latin America than anywhere in the Western World.
Which is exactly the Vatican's intent. They realise the West is a lost cause, so are trying to scare the developing countries off Western practices. I imagine the Vatican would be quite content for developing countries to simply not develop, since that way they maintain their strangle-hold on faith due to hopelessness.