Several years ago, the American Catholic bishops got together with the intent of making a statement supporting the use of condoms. They started to write something like, "We don't condone premarital sex, yet recognize it exists. AIDS has become an international crisis and condom use is in the interest of preventing the spread of this disease." But then they had the problem that they were promoting birth control, which is against the tenets of the church and they couldn't find a way out of that box, so they just decided not to issue the statement.
It sounds to me like the Vatican has put their foot in their mouth. They can't condone condom use because it's against a very important tenet of the church. Since AIDS is an international problem and the Church has an international scope, they are asked to back down on the condom thing in order to prevent the spread of this disease. They can't do that without contradicting themselves, so instead the come up with a statement that makes them look stupid instead.