Croatia's powerful Roman Catholic Church has opposed efforts to promote the use of condoms among teenagers to help prevent AIDS and launched its own sex education programme counselling chastity and abstinence.
The church's programme, publicised in Croatian media this week, aims to sideline MEMOAIDS, a course introduced as an optional subject in local secondary schools to raise awareness about AIDS.
The Catholic Church opposes the use of condoms, which church officials say "encourages promiscuity and raises the chances of HIV infection while not being fully successful in preventing pregnancy".
AIDS activists reject this, saying condoms help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Our programme has a different approach than MEMOAIDS, which suggests the use of condoms as protection. The goal is to change the behaviour, not to promote wider use of condoms," the widely circulated daily Jutarnji list quoted bishop Valter Zupan as saying on Friday.
Zupan, who heads the Family Council of the Croatian Bishops' Conference (HBK), added that "experts from Washington have recently proved that the use of condoms enhances promiscuity and the possibility of HIV infection".
The Catholic Church counsels chastity and marital fidelity and its opposition to condoms has sparked growing criticism worldwide as the number of AIDS victims soars.
The HBK said earlier this week that MEMOAIDS was also unacceptable because it did not require approval from parents.
Dragan Primorac, Education and Science Minister in the new conservative government, said his ministry would thoroughly review both programmes before making any decisions.
Almost 90 percent of people in this former Yugoslav republic declare themselves Catholics, although surveys suggest more than half approve of abortion, which the Catholic Church rejects.