Church retracts consent for condoms

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Telegraph
By Isambard Wilkinson, Madrid Correspondent
(Filed: 21/01/2005)

The Spanish Catholic Church has retracted a declaration permitting use of condoms to prevent the transmission of Aids after a swift reprimand from the Vatican.

On Tuesday, in a fundamental shift of policy, Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, the spokesman for Spain's Conference of Catholic Bishops, said condoms could be used as part of the global effort to prevent Aids.

The Vatican, however, quickly stepped in to set the record straight.

"The use of prophylactics is unacceptable even as a solution to the problem of Aids, because the objective is the fight against fornication," said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the Vatican's health secretary, in an interview published yesterday by the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica.

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