Vatican frowns upon condom dispensers

But the Keplero high school vowed Thursday to go ahead with its experiment, billed as the first in the capital. While it's a relative novelty for Italy, schools in several other European countries have installed the machines in hopes of curbing teen pregnancy and HIV.

“This is not about stimulating the use of condoms or intercourse,” Antonio Panaccione, the school headmaster, told The Associated Press. “On the contrary, it's about prevention and education.” The school plans to install six vending machines as part of educating students about sexuality and HIV protection. The price: euro2 (US$2.70) for a pack of three, lower than market prices.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the pope's vicar for Rome, said the decision trivialized sex. He said it “cannot be approved by Rome's ecclesiastical community or by Christian families who are seriously concerned with the education of their children.”

The newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference said Thursday that sex was being reduced to “mere physical exercise.” The newspaper, L'Avvenire, lamented that young people these days have no spiritual guidance on sexuality, and that educators are more concerned with “the health and hygiene consequences of sex” than its moral implications.

The Vatican opposes artificial contraception. Catholic teaching views sex as a means for procreation within marriage.

Pope Benedict XVI drew criticism from European governments, international organizations and scientists last year when he said distributing condoms was not the answer to Africa's AIDS problem, and could make it worse. He said a moral attitude toward sex — abstinence and marital fidelity — would help fight the virus. “The scandal is that we do it in Rome, because this is the city of the pope and therefore one can't really talk about sex,” Panaccione said in a phone interview. “They can talk about pedophilia, can't they?” he said, referring to a sex abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church in several European countries. But some criticism came from outside the church, too.

A leading association of parents, MOIGE, said the move was “trivial and insufficient.” Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, a conservative, was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying that “on the one hand it's childish to think young people need these vending machines, on the other hand it seems like a bad message to them.”

The head of Italy's national association of Catholic pharmacists, Piero Uroda, suggested condoms were responsible for increased rapes and violence. “We're giving sugar to the diabetic,” he told Radio 24 Il Sole 24 Ore.

Panaccione said condom distribution was only part of the sex education curriculum. The school enrolls about 860 students aged 15-19 at two venues — one in a lower-middle class neighborhood, one in a blue-collar area.

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