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Dutch Catholics do not question the right and duty of the Holy Office to keep the faith of the church free of error. Thus most of the censured theologians have accepted their monita, and have either kept silence or corrected what Rome regards as mistakes. But in a land where Catholics (40% of the 51 population) live elbow-to-elbow with Protestants (38%) and the general level of education and intercommunication is high, Rome's fetters often seem petty, anachronistic and Italianate. Pope John's summoning of the council convinced the Dutch that renewal was at hand; and now, says one Dutch theologian, with pride in his voice, "Dutch Catholics have protested openly each time Rome takes an action that they don't like."
*Last week the Vatican's L'Osservatore della Domenica suggested that medical research might call for a re-examination of Catholic teaching on birth control. In an interview for an Italian weekly last week, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office said that public discussions of the pill are up to the Holy See and the Vatican Council rather than individual theologians—but he did not outlaw further consideration of the problem by moralists.