U.S. Bishops Hit Condom Education : Religion: Conference also calls for talks leading to an independent Palestinian homeland.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops today condemned teaching youngsters about condoms in public schools and called for Middle East negotiations leading to an independent Palestinian homeland.

In a policy statement approved 219 to 4, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops dropped earlier conditional support for condom education and urged that AIDS prevention instead emphasize chastity.

“We caution young people not to be trapped into the ‘safe-sex’ myth, which is both a lie and a fraud,” said Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.

The AIDS statement also defended the civil rights of AIDS patients but disapproved of programs that let drug users exchange dirty needles for clean ones.

The Mideast policy statement, approved unanimously, said Palestinians have a right to “participate as equals” in negotiations affecting their destiny and the right to clear title to territory.

“The conclusion which follows from these assertions is as clear as it has been controversial: Palestinian representation in Middle East negotiations leading to Palestinian territorial and political sovereignty,” the bishops said.

The statement also called on the Arab states and Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist and said there must be negotiated limits on Palestinian sovereignty to protect Israel’s security.

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston said the statement is a “sorely needed invitation to dialogue for the cause of peace in the Middle East.”

The Synagogue Council of America, which represents groups of Conservative, Orthodox and Reform Jewish congregations and rabbis, promptly accused the bishops of meddling in “the domain of the political entities involved.”

Grappling with two difficult issues on one day of their weeklong meeting, the bishops came out against universal mandatory AIDS testing and violence and discrimination against people with AIDS.

The AIDS statement drops a 1987 assertion by the conference’s Administrative Board that the church could tolerate public schools providing information about condoms as long as sexual abstinence outside of marriage was presented as the “only morally correct and medically sure way” to prevent AIDS.

Some bishops complained that the 1987 statement could be misinterpreted as condoning sex outside marriage and artificial birth control, even though the document said the bishops did not approve of condom use.

The new statement attacks condom education as a “quick fix” approach to the AIDS crisis that “can lead to promiscuous sexual behavior.”

Health officials estimate as many as 1.5 million Americans have been infected with the AIDS virus, mostly through sex, tainted needles or infected blood.