After "defeating" yoga classes for teachers and Sunday shopping, Croatia's Catholic Church is again testing its power in this conservative society by opposing a safe-sex programme in schools.
"Under the pretext of protecting adolescents against AIDS, a technique on how to use preventive means is actually being practised," the Croatian Conference of Bishops fumed in a recent statement.
The bishops labelled the programme as "explicitly against Christian moral teaching," in line with the Catholic Church's general opposition to contraception and condom distribution.
Mirjana Krizmanic, a social psychologist, said the Church had no right to meddle in the health policies of a secular state.
"It is unacceptable that the Church interferes in matters which should be decided upon by experts, since these are public schools and we are a secular state," she said.
"This is a demonstration of power. The Church has been gradually testing its power, first with yoga, and then with Sunday shopping ... However it has never raised its voice against fraudulent privatisations, social injustice or the rights of Roma children."
The government last year abandoned plans to introduce optional yoga classes for high school teachers after the Church slammed such physical exercises as heretical.
The Church also claimed to have the workers' interests at heart when it initiated a law banning Sunday trading. Many Croatians however see the move as a bid to stem declining church attendances.
The bishops have not explicitly demanded an end to the AIDS awareness programme but their position has been made all too clear by priests with little understanding of the science and medical issues involved.
The programme is taught by experts and peer educators through optional workshops in public high schools. It has been approved by the health ministry and is designed to help adolescents learn about HIV-AIDS.
The proper use of condoms is, of course, only a small part of the programme.
Even so, Bishop Valter Zupan has argued that the use of condoms "increases the risk of HIV infection." He has outraged the medical community with similar distortions of science, including claims that the HIV virus passed through "pores" in condoms which offered no real protection.
"This is outrageous misinformation," said Zagreb Children's Hospital head of reproductive health and an epidemiologist Vlasta Hirsl-Hecej.
"The Church may say that in accordance with Christian morals condoms are not acceptable, but their lies are dangerous. We are talking about a lethal disease."
Out of Croatia's population of 4.4 million some 400 people are estimated to have the HIV virus and there are 216 people with AIDS, officials said.
The Roman Catholic Church, which was marginalized during more than 40 years of communist rule after World War II, has regained a prominent role in society since the Balkan republic broke away from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
During the 1991-95 war against rebel ethnic Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians, many Croatians found national and cultural identity in the Catholic Church, a fact exploited by the then nationalist regime.
The Vatican was among the first to recognize Croatia's independence in January 1992. Pope John Paul II made his third trip to Croatia, a country where almost 88 percent of the people are Roman Catholics, last June.
Croatia's new conservative prime minister, Ivo Sanader, went to the Vatican on his first official visit after winning elections in November.