„Right-wing bishops aren’t helping the cause of compromise with their incessant charges that the Obama team harbors an anti-Catholic animus. This view gained ground when the administration ended a grant to the bishops for a program assisting the victims of human trafficking because it did not provide contraception and abortion referrals. Stopping that funding was a mistake, but the White House has reason to bridle at allegations of anti-Catholicism, given how much it has actually increased financing for many leading Catholic groups.
Administration calculations show, for example, that federal funding for Catholic Relief Services went from roughly $198 million in 2007 to $362 million in 2010. Catholic Charities affiliates have seen an increase in federal help of more than $100 million since 2008. The polemical overkill on the right end of the bishops’ conference is not justified and only feeds a belief among Democrats that compromise with the church is pointless because the most conservative bishops will continue their attacks no matter what Obama does.
But the question of what a fair and principled compromise would look like on contraception and the health-care law should not be lost in the political maelstrom. Even an expanded exemption covering Catholic hospitals and universities would still go far beyond what the bishops have called for, as Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, chairman of their Committee on Pro-Life Activities, made clear in a September statement opposing mandated contraception coverage altogether.”