For its critics in the Vatican, it is a matter of "deep concern". For its proponents, it is "evidence of great courage".

Amid national controversy, the Kepler scientific secondary school today became the first in the Italian education system to install condom vending machines for students. The machines, in the girls' and boys' toilets, will sell cut-price condoms just a few miles from the Vatican; the Kepler is in a lower-middle class district of Rome, just outside the city's ancient walls.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, who stands in for the pope in his capacity as bishop of Rome, deplored the initiative as "trivialising sexuality".

The head of the capital's doctors' association said he too disapproved of the project. "This is like recognising you can have sex at school," said Dr Mario Falconi. "I would not want a scholastic use of the condom to be authorised in this fashion, especially considering there is no problem of availability of prophylactics in our country."

The condoms went on sale at €2 (£1.82) for a packet of three – less than half the usual retail price.

The Kepler's headteacher, Antonio Panaccione, invited other schools "not to take fright, and do the same". His comments and those of others reflected the continuing influence in Italy of Catholic teaching on sexual matters.

"At the outset," Panaccione said, "there was some hesitation among some of the parents and teachers, motivated by fear and insecurity. But then, by discussing it, that was all got over."

The Italian student's union, which noted that the French Lycée in Rome had been making condoms available to its pupils since 2001, said in a statement: "Only in Italy would this cause a stir." It added: "A number of secondary educational institutions in western countries distribute condoms, as do many schools in the US."

Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) condemned "any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation." Despite Aids and talk of a rethink after Pope Benedict was elected five years ago, the Vatican has remained solidly opposed to artificial methods of contraception ever since.

Italy's very low fertility rate – estimated last year at 1.31 births per woman of child-bearing age – indicates that many couples do use contraception. But the prejudice against artificial methods remains strong.

Annalisa Chirico, a student leader standing in an election this month for the regional assembly in Lazio, the region around Rome, said figures from the Italian society of gynaecology and obstetrics last month showed "40% of [teenage] girls do not use any method of contraception and another 20% entrust themselves entirely to the withdrawal method."

The Kepler school's initiative followed the adoption by the provincial administration of a resolution in favour of the distribution of condoms in schools.

The local politician behind the resolution, Gianluca Peciola, said: "The Kepler school, its headmaster and the school council are showing they have great courage."