Which, until really quite recently might as well have been life or death, and for many still is, or near enough.

And the Catholic church is entirely wrong if they think that the slight encouragement of "immorality" they might conceivably cause by allowing the use of condoms, outweighs the considerable amount of lives that would be saved by their use.

Oh, quite. But since you know that most cf them will eventually play with fire, as you say, you wouldn't be so foolish as to keep from them the tools that might save their life in case they do it, just because by giving them those tools you slightly undermine your prohibition against it. Or those tools that would keep children who have set themselves on fire from setting other children on fire. Interesting analogy you came up with there...