Taiwan has withdrawn an anti-AIDS campaign ad featuring a smiling nun holding a condom after it sparked an outcry from Roman Catholics, local media said on Wednesday.
The poster, which shows the nun holding the condom with both hands and saying “Although I don’t need one, even I know”, had been removed from all condom machines in Taipei hospitals, subway stations and elsewhere.
“As a nun, I can’t agree with their way of expressing things,” a church spokeswoman said on Wednesday. “This is a serious insult.”
Nuns take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and the Vatican considers all forms of contraception a sin.
Local media said the plan had been to use someone with a “positive image” to promote the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.
There are about 300,000 Catholics on the island of 23 million people.