“Abstinence and monogamy are the only weapons against Aids”: that is the line expressed, on behalf of the Dutch bishops, in their first pronouncement on the subject, by Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, president of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference and Bishop W.J. Eijk, delegate for questions of medical ethics, in an editorial published in the Dutch daily Volkskrant on 1st December. “The Church’s view of sexuality does not deserve to be reduced to a caricature say the prelates . The Church does not lay down rules for birth control, but believes that condoms are contrary to the ethical good and don’t even represent a safe method of realizing a responsible and humanly dignified form of family planning”. “It’s not necessary – continues Simonis to be Catholics to agree with the Church that sexual abstinence and monogamy may defeat 100% the transmission of the HIV virus”: “anyone endowed with common sense” may reach this conclusion.
