VATICAN CITY, Jan 19 (AFP) - The Vatican held its ground Wednesday after Spanish bishops broke a taboo by condoning the use of condoms as a legitimate way of fighting HIV/AIDS, much as it did when French bishops tested papal patience with a similar stance in the 1990s.
The Holy See responded cooly after the general secretary of the Spanish bishops' conference said the prophylactic "has its place in the context of the integral and global prevention of AIDS".
The comments by Reverend Juan Antonio Martinez Camino sent shockwaves through national bishops' conferences elsewhere, and within hours episcopal conferences across Europe were siding with the Vatican line.
While Camino's comments were seen in Spain as a sea-change in how the Roman Catholic Church views the use of condoms, the Vatican -- where Church doctrine is set out -- quietly but firmly reiterated the official line, and Catholic leaders elsewhere followed suit.
The Vatican forbids use of condoms because they are a form of contraception, and has in the past openly contradicted scientific evidence of their effectiveness as a barrier to HIV, the precursor to AIDS.
A senior Vatican prelate, Bishop Jose Luis Redrado Machite, told AFP the use of condoms was "contrary to Catholic morality".
"There are 40 methods promoted by scientists to combat AIDS. The condom is one of those means," said Redrado, a Spaniard who heads the Pontifical Council for Health.
He added that he felt Camino had merely been voicing that view, not advocating the use of the prophylactic.
Meanwhile, several other episcopal conferences across Europe rowed in behind the Vatican.
The Church in Switzerland said it "remains on the same line as Rome. We don't have a different position from that of the Vatican.
"We therefore don't share the point of view of the Spanish Church," spokesman Mario Galgano told AFP.
Austrian bishops' spokesman Eric Leitenberger said the subject had never been tackled by the bishops in his country.
In the Netherlands, as in Germany, bishops' conferences said they would wait until after receiving clarification from their Spanish counterparts before commenting.
However, the liberal Catholic movement "Wir sind Kirche" (We are the Church) was "positively surprised" at the Spanish stance.
"I hope that this position will be solidly established in the Roman Catholic Church," said the movement's Christian Weisner.
In Belgium the view was more liberal. Bishops' spokesman Father Eric de Beukelaer said the Church "would never approve" of a sex life outside of marriage, but he added that if that was to be the case, "better that (wearing a condom) than spreading AIDS".
The episcopal conference in Pope John Paul II's native Poland refused to comment on the Spanish bishops' position.
In staunchly Catholic Croatia, the Catholic information service IKA said it maintained its position against the use of condoms as part of a strategy in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, advocating "abstinence and fidelity" as the most important means of stopping the epidemic.
The Vatican has been here before. In 1996, French bishops published a document, largely echoed by their Spanish counterparts on Wednesday, in which they advocated condoms "as one of the ways of preventing the spread of AIDS".
However, four days later the president of the bishop's social commission, Bishop Albert Rouet, said it was "incorrect" to portray the move as a rupture with Rome or in any way opposed to the official position.
There was no official comment from the Vatican, but the then-chairman of the Pontifical Council for Health, Bishop Fiorenzo Angelini, accused the international media of "stoking up the debate".
The Vatican eventually imposed its conservative view.
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