Outrage at Vatican Ethics Dictionary

The Vatican published an ethical dictionary yesterday saying homosexuality has "no social value", warning against concepts such as "safe sex" and "reproductive health" and insisting that condoms don't protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

The book, one of the Vatican's most scathing attacks yet on what it considers deteriorating social values, caused outrage in Italy's gay community, among some Italian politicians and even at certain levels within the Vatican itself.

The 900-page Lexicon On Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms About Family Life and Ethical Questions queries the use by world leaders and public organisations of 78 key words related to sexuality, abortion and birth control.

Leaders who encourage the use of condoms for safe sex are running a commercially motivated "exercise in self-justification", the book says, concealing the fact that tests show condoms don't work 10% of the time.

"The Vatican, these imbeciles, are burning up years of work of professional doctors in a matter of seconds," said Fabio Canino, a popular gay television presenter in Italy, referring to the Vatican's message to the world's one billion Catholics on condoms.

He added: "The irony of this vicious message against homosexuality is that there are more gays per capita inside the Vatican than in most other countries."