Condom use questioned

The Vatican is reconsidering the morality and effectiveness of using condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS.

At a conference in May, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, two-dozen speakers discussed "the centrality of care" in preventing the disease.

The conference came several months after Pope Benedict XVI touched off a controversy by stating that condom use to prevent infection could "be a first step in the direction of a moralization" of sexuality, though the Vatican's doctrinal office later reported the Roman Catholic moral teaching or pastoral practice against the use of condoms for AIDS prevention or contraception had not changed.