Rome ? The decision by a Rome high school to install condom vending machines has set off a storm in Italy, with the Catholic Church charging the move will encourage young people to have sex and Rome’s mayor saying it sends the wrong message.

But the Keplero high school vowed Thursday to go ahead with its experiment, billed as the first in the capital. While it’s a relative novelty for Italy, schools in several other European countries have installed the machines in hopes of curbing teen pregnancy and HIV.

“This is not about stimulating the use of condoms or intercourse,” Antonio Panaccione, the school headmaster, told The Associated Press. “On the contrary, it’s about prevention and education.”

The school plans to install six vending machines as part of educating students about sexuality and HIV protection. The price: euro2 (US$2.70) for a pack of three, lower than market prices.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the pope’s vicar for Rome, said the decision trivialized sex. He said it “cannot be approved by Rome’s ecclesiastical community or by Christian families who are seriously concerned with the education of their children.”

The newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference said Thursday that sex was being reduced to “mere physical exercise.” The newspaper, L’Avvenire, lamented that young people these days have no spiritual guidance on sexuality, and that educators are more concerned with “the health and hygiene consequences of sex” than its moral implications.

The Vatican opposes artificial contraception. Catholic teaching views sex as a means for procreation within marriage.

Pope Benedict XVI drew criticism from European governments, international organizations and scientists last year when he said distributing condoms was not the answer to Africa’s AIDS problem, and could make it worse. He said a moral attitude toward sex — abstinence and marital fidelity — would help fight the virus.

“The scandal is that we do it in Rome because this is the city of the pope and therefore one can’t really talk about sex,” Panaccione said in a phone interview. “They can talk about pedophilia, can’t they?” he said, referring to a sex abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church in several European countries.

Panaccione said condom distribution was only part of the sex education curriculum. The school enrolls about 860 students aged 15-19 at two venues — one in a lower-middle class neighborhood, one in a blue-collar area.

Panaccione said the decision was taken because of the rising number of HIV cases among young people, and to break a taboo still surrounding the use of condoms in Italy.

LILA, a national association for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, said distributing condoms could help combat HIV among the young.

Teen pregnancies have been on the rise in Italy, although not sharply. According to the latest figures made available by national statistics agency ISTAT, there was a 0.5 percent increase in teen pregnancy between 2006 and 2007.

On average, Italian women have sex for the first time at age 16, according to SIGO, a group of Italian gynecologists and obstetricians. Almost four in 10 have unprotected sex the first time.